Snow White and the Seven FBI Agents
by happyalvin
Summary: A year before she joined the FBI Emily Prentiss gave up a daughter for adoption, go forward fifteen years and a tragic accident brings mother and daughter together again. But as capable a profiler as Emily is can she handle a sullen fifteen year old?
1. Chapter 1

SSA Emily Prentiss scanned across the arrival section of the Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport as she waited for the two people who she had come to meet. Normally Emily wasn't one for nerves considering the nature of her job but today she was bouncing off the ways in a rather controlled manner. Instead of letting people see how much of a nervous wreck she was Emily took to tapping her foot incessantly to let the nervous energy out but yet she had also resorted to biting her nails, a sure sign that she was worried or nervous. Emily had been waiting for this day for over three weeks and now it was finally here, after fifteen years the daughter she had given up for adoption was coming home to her. Not long after Emily graduated from Yale she had discovered that she was pregnant after a short relationship with a fellow classmate and rather than have another abortion like she did when she was fifteen Emily decided to give the baby up for adoption. This time Emily had gone to her parents because she knew there was no way that she could do this alone and her parents were of course very disappointed with her but none the less they agreed to help. It was decided that Emily would stay in a very private and secluded house of one of Ambassador Prentiss' old friends who happened to be travelling aboard during the duration of the pregnancy. The family then spread the news that Emily was travelling throughout Europe for a year before joining the FBI. A private and closed adoption was soon arranged and Emily's baby was handed over to her adoptive parents a mere few hours after her birth and both parties went their separate ways. Until now. It was fifteen years and three months since the adoption that Emily received the phone call that would lead her here. As she waited she thought back to that morning, when she walked into the BAU and greeted her co-workers before making herself her second coffee of the day before the morning briefing. As Emily filled up her mug her cell phone started to ring and as she looked at the caller id she didn't recognize the number but she did the area code. It was 203, which was one of Connecticut's telephone area codes.

"_Prentiss."_

"_Emily Prentiss?" A warm voice said over the phone that Emily didn't recognize._

"_Speaking." Emily replied with a slight chuckle in her voice as she watcher Morgan and Reid goof around together._

_The woman on the line seemed to sigh with relief. "Sorry to call so early but my name is Susan Quinn and I'm from Connecticut Social Services; the reason why I'm calling is in regards to an adoption that took place fourteen years ago and according to the adoption license that I've been given, on May 2__nd __1994 you gave birth to a baby girl who was adopted by Horace and Amanda Cavanaugh."_

_Emily stood up straighter as a tingle went up her spin. "I don't understand why I'm being called by social services it was dealt through a private agency... Has something happened?"_

_There why a heartfelt sigh on the other end of the phone and immediately Emily knew there was something wrong. "I know the adoption was close but unfortunate events have used to do extraordinary measures in orders to find you Ms. Prentiss, I'm sorry to be the one to tell you this especially on the phone but Mr and Mrs Cavanaugh died five weeks ago."_

"_What happened?" _

"_There was a traffic accident, a car cut in front of a truck causing the driver to lose control and it rolled over killing three others including the driver. Once again I offer my condolences." The woman called Susan said._

"_What about their daughter? Was Savannah in the accident? Is she okay?" Emily asked as the panic began rising in her throat that she didn't even notice that she said the name that had pained her for over fifteen years. When she gave up her daughter for adoption she wasn't allowed to have a picture but when her parents were out of the room Horace and Amanda Cavanaugh revealed to Emily what they intended on calling the baby girl. Savannah Reagan. _

"_Fortunately Savannah wasn't with Mr and Mrs Cavanaugh at the time of the accident but that's why I'm calling The Cavanaugh's never named someone as Savannah's legal guardian in case something like this should ever happen." Ms. Quinn said before taking a deep breath. "I was wondering if you'd possibly consider taking Savannah."_

_Emily stood there coffee in one hand and her cellphone in the other in complete shock and what she was being asked. "You want me to take her? Is that even possible?" _

"_Yes it is possible, __relatives of the adopted child whether biological or through the adoptive parents are given the opportunity to become the minor child's guardian if the adoptive parent pass away and no guardian has been set in place. I know this a lot to ask for Ms. Prentiss but Mr and Mrs. Cavanaugh were both only children and there is no other family left and since their death Savannah has been in foster care. It's only now that we were able to locate you, I don't want to pressure you into doing anything but __the likely hood of Savannah getting adopted again at her age is very unlikely and unless we find her a home she'll remain in foster care until she ages out which is the last thing that we want but if no one steps forward..."_

_I'll take her." Emily blurted out before she knew what she was doing._

"_Are you sure? It's a lot of responsibility I must stress that you don't have to do this Ms. Prentiss." Susan replied as the surprise was evident in her tone of voice_

"_Yes I'm sure, I want to take her."_

That was three weeks ago and now Emily was trying to resist the urge to bite her nails as she waited for Susan and Savannah. Their plane had come in half an hour ago so they should be coming out anytime soon, Emily told herself. Ever since she had gone to Connecticut to sign the petition for guardianship amongst other things and after those had been sorted things had gotten slightly easier, Emily and Susan had to convince the judge that it was in the best interest of Savannah to have her move to D.C. and start over. Thankfully the judge had agreed and fast forward three weeks later today was the day. Susan had Savannah's belonging sent over last week and they were now sitting in Emily's former spare room now Savannah's bedroom. As much as Emily wanted to peek in the boxes and see the person her daughter had grown into she didn't. There would be plenty of time to find that out earlier, from what Susan had told her Savannah had withdrawn into herself since her parents death and had taken to wearing a lot of dark clothing and developed some sort of obsession with chocolate pudding cups. Emily took a sharp intake of breath when she saw Savannah walking with Susan; she was absolutely beautiful with her glossy black hair, which contrasted with her porcelain skin and hazel eyes. Of course Susan had given her Savannah's file and she had seen photo's of Savannah throughout her childhood but seeing her in person was entirely different.

"It's nice to see you again Emily, thank you for doing this I know Savannah will be very happy here." Susan began as her and Emily shook hands. Emily watched as Savannah rolled eyes and Susan gave Emily an apologetic smile. "Currently Savannah prefers to only answer to her middle name; Reagan."

Of course Emily had known this as Susan had called her to inform her of this development when it happened as Savannah would usually break whatever it was she was holding whenever someone called her by her first name. Seeing as Savannah had yet to do anything Emily assumed that Susan had told Savannah to be on her best behaviour. "It's a pleasure to meet you Reagan."

Reagan looked Emily up and down carefully sizing her up before glancing over at Susan. "Right." She said stretching out the word with a monotone sound to her voice.

"Now, I have to go check in for my flight back home but I'll leave you in Emily's capable hands and I'll be back in two weeks to see how you're both doing." Susan said.

"Thanks Susie Q." Reagan stated and the amount of sarcasm in her voice was blatantly obvious but Susan either didn't catch it or seemed to ignore it completely. The latter seemed to be the obvious one.

"No problem Rae, now I'll be keeping an eye on you and your grades so if I even catch a whiff of a D I'll be on the phone, do you hear me Savannah?" Susan warned and it sounded like she really meant it but there was a hint of teasing in her voice.

Reagan mustered up a small smirk as she looked at her caseworker. "Yes Susannah."

"Any problems, don't hesitate to call me." Susan said as she smiled at the two. "Otherwise I will see you both in two weeks."

Emily and Reagan both watched as they watched as Susan took off for another part of the airport leaving the two of them there standing awkwardly and surrounded by Reagan's luggage. "You'll like D.C. Reagan especially if you liked living in Connecticut." Emily said in an attempt to be optimistic and encouraging as she knew it must have be difficult for her to leave the place was she was born and grew up in order to live with someone who she didn't know.

Reagan turned her head and looked at Emily with a blank look on her face. "I hated Connecticut."

This was going to be harder than expected.


	2. Chapter 2

After the slightly disastrous first meeting in the airport Emily took Reagan back to her brownstone and though the duration of the car journey Reagan said nothing and Emily decided not to push her. It had been a tough few weeks for her, firstly losing her parents and then being put into foster care before being sent to live with the mother who gave her up for adoption. When she had gone to Connecticut to sign the petition for guardianship, Susan has told her that Reagan had been told of what was going to happen and that Reagan had rolled her eyes in bemusement and said "irony seems to have developed a sick and twisted sense of humour" before asking for more pudding cups. Getting the courage to break the ice Emily opened her fridge and grabbed a dessert from inside and after she shut a door she grabbed a spoon brown the cutlery draw before making her way over to the kitchen table where Reagan was sitting whilst she aimlessly started out the window. "So Reagan… Susan said that you like chocolate pudding cups." Emily explained as she placed the pudding and spoon in front of her.

The teenager wearily stared at the pudding before looking at Emily and her attention kept switching between the two as if she wasn't sure she could trust either of them. "I may." Reagan replied as she took the offered pudding cup and spoon with another sceptical glance at Emily before she started to eat the pudding.

Emily then proceeded to think about the response Reagan gave at the airport when asked why she hated Connecticut Reagan replied in a tone and manner, which could easily rival Hotch's. "Because I do." But for what came easily to Hotch, Emily noticed that Reagan was being particularly selective with what she was saying and was trying to say as little words as possible. "I have a sweet tooth as well for chocolate but what really does it for me is sweetener in my coffee."

"I hate coffee." Reagan gruffly replied not even looking up from her pudding cup.

So far she hates Connecticut, coffee and being called Savannah, Emily listed off in her head as she treaded carefully around Reagan as according to Susan, she was unpredictable at times and although she wouldn't call her a liar… Susan did say that Reagan was stretch the truth very thin when it suited her and often intentionally lead people astray even if they asked her a simple question. "So what do you like doing?"

"Sleeping, eating and occasionally thinking." Reagan answered as she looked at the ceiling to avoid looking directly at Emily.

"Normal teenage things then." Emily slowly asked as she watcher Reagan, it was as if she was questioning a suspect rather than trying to get her own daughter to open up. Emily thought about trying to connect with Reagan by telling her what she did as a teenager but telling the daughter that she gave up for adoption that she got pregnant and had an abortion when she was fifteen may not be the best way to get Reagan to open up so she decided to try and find a common interest to get them started. "Susan told me that you also like to read…"

"You can stop this." Reagan interrupted.

"Stop what?"

Reagan took a big dramatic sigh and rolled her eyes. "Pretending to care."

The tone of Reagan's voice made it clear that she was not very happy to which Emily wasn't sure why but she suspected it may have something do with the adoption. As finding out that the parent who gave you up for adoption was willing to take her in after the adoptive parents who had raised her for fifteen years had died. "What makes you think I don't care Reagan?" Emily questioned.

"I know." Reagan began. "That I'm adopted."

Emily wasn't sure what to say to this as Susan had told her that Reagan had been told exactly who she was but she had never mentioned whether Reagan had known she was adopted prior to her parents' death. But Reagan's lashing out and sudden change of behaviour would fit in perfectly with morning the loss of two parents but Emily now suspected that it was actually because of the news that she had been adopted. "You're parents didn't tell you." Emily stated rather than asked.

"I figured it out myself." Reagan wirily replied as she started fiddling with her fingers, giving Emily the clear sign that she was very uncomfortable with the subject.

"How long have you know?"

"Since I was ten."

"If they didn't tell you then how did you figure it out?"

Reagan rolled her eyes again and took a deep breath before speaking very slowly and this time she actually looked Emily straight in the eye as she spoke. "Mendel... The glaring physical differences."

Emily nodded slowly, from what she could remember of Horace and Amanda Cavanaugh she seemed to vaguely recall that Amanda was a strawberry blonde with blue eyes and Horace had brown hair with hints of it starting to go gray and he also had blue eyes. So Emily could see how Reagan could figure out she was adopted just by looking herself as neither her parents had the black hair or hazel eyes that she had. Judging by 'glaring physical' comment and the fact that Reagan was still looking at her, it was clear that she had taken notice of the obvious physical similarities between them and her tone suggested that she wasn't happy. "To tell a child something like that is a big decision, maybe they were waiting for the right time to tell you." Emily offered.

"Too late, they're dead now." Reagan dryly commented and it was clear the irony in her life wasn't lost on the teenager.

"Reagan…" Emily began, although she wasn't really sure what she could day to that.

"I'm going to sleep." Reagan announced putting an end to the conversation as she got up from the kitchen table and Emily picked up her empty pudding cup and spoon.

Emily was surprised to say the least as it was three in the afternoon but she didn't question Reagan's behaviour. If she wanted to sleep or just be alone then who was she to deny her that after everything she had been through. "I'm sorry that you found out the way you did and your parents never got the chance to tell you the truth, you had every right to know Reagan." She added as she watched Reagan's retreating figure head in the direction of her bedroom.

Reagan paused as she walked past a bookshelf and a particular book on one of the shelves caught her eye and she stood there for a few moments before taking a deep breath she turned back around. "I like Kurt Vonnegut too."

Emily smiled at the first sentence that Reagan had spoke without using any type of sarcasm or negative emotion but seeing Emily's reaction Reagan rolled her eyes before turning down the hallway that led to the room. However this didn't dampen Emily's mood as she disposed of the pudding cup, they had made some progress since the mishap at the earlier but Reagan was still choosing her words carefully and had yet to say more than five words at a time. But the fact that her daughter was a Kurt Vonnegut fan that had made her day and now more than ever Emily was convinced that she made the right choice to have Reagan come and live with her and as long as they had Kurt Vonnegut and chocolate in common was a sign that things would work out in time.


	3. Chapter 3

Reagan Cavanaugh was a bright girl, in fact she was a very smart girl and fortunately for her she was one of those students who coasted through school without really trying so she wasn't really bothered about starting school. But after spending most of Saturday and all of Sunday sleeping she had woken up at the crack of dawn bored out of her mind and an opportunity presented itself when Emily had started to get ready for work and told Reagan that she had spoken to her new principal and that she could start her sophomore year this week or the week after. Before she could stop herself Reagan said she's start today, which she wasn't sure whether it was a good thing because granted she wanted to get out of the house but she was coming in two weeks late. But it was either that or unpack her bedroom which Reagan wasn't in a rush to do so when questioned by Emily Reagan told her 'I'm worried about falling behind'. She lied, she wasn't at all worried about falling behind it's just that she needed to get out of Emily's apartment for a few hours to have some space but she couldn't tell Emily that because it would exceed her five word rule she had been implementing since she had arrived in D.C. After what happened the day she arrived Reagan wasn't even sure what to say to Emily and things had gotten pretty awkward after the adoption bombshell the there was the resemblance between herself and Emily freaked out her out, from the hair colour, eye shape and the jaw line then there was the whole Kurt Vonnegut thing that had creeped Regan out. She could accept the fact that they looked scarily alike because Emily was technically her biological mother but both of them liking the same author was weird. But as much of a moody teenager Reagan was being she had to admit that Emily was trying but thankfully not too much, which is why Reagan told her that she too like Kurt Vonnegut. The woman deserved something to be handed her after everything she was doing. Though Reagan suspected Susan had a hand in as although Susan never confirmed it Reagan was sure they had spent quite a great deal of time talking about her. Thinking of Susan made Reagan feel an odd bit of nostalgia, granted she had only known the woman five weeks but during that time they had made a bit of an impression on each other and she could even admit she missed the woman. Even when she was nagging her but Reagan would rather die that let Susan know how much of an effect she had on her so she was keeping that to herself. In typical fashion of a child starting their first day of school Emily dropped Reagan off and the two of them went and spoke to the principal before Emily had to leave for work.

"Any problems call me."

"Right." Reagan replied with a lack of enthusiasm as she gave Emily an awkward wave goodbye, this was her second day first day of high school. if she could get through it in Connecticut then she could certainly handle it here.

After Emily had left Reagan was taken to her first class by the principal where she was forced to answer the question on why she had moved to D.C. Reagan shuffled her feet and didn't know where to look so she didn't look anywhere in particular. "My parents died." She finally answered although she didn't know why she said that, she could have said anything else but she had to say that and that didn't exactly go down well so after that she just made up whatever she could. So by the time it was lunch Reagan has wished that she had just taken Emily's suggestion of waiting another week before starting school. "Your Savannah right?" a voice said to Reagan's right and looking up from her oh so delicious lunch she saw a girl who looked to be round about her age with an oval face, blonde hair, big brown eyes and a perfect smile. Which made Reagan wonder why this girl was talking to her of all people, as they didn't look like the kind of people to associate together. There was Reagan with her black vest top, jeans and boots in fact the only thing she was wearing that wasn't completely black was a long grey cardigan and her beige messenger bag. Compared to Blondie who was dressed in a white shirt, under a pink sweater so basically the whole preppy look. The two of them couldn't be two worlds apart Reagan thought to herself.

"Reagan."

"Oh I'm sorry to interrupt you but Principal Harding told me I was meeting a new student called Savannah and I was certain that Mrs. Harringer introduced you as Savannah." Blondie said as she looked around hoping to spot the Savannah she was looking for who just so happened to be right in front of her.

This was getting complicated and Reagan knew she couldn't stick to saying five words or less while she was at school, so she decided to only do it when she was with Emily. "That's me, my name is Savannah I just don't go by it anymore."

Blondie sat down on the opposite side of the table facing Reagan. "What's the deal with Reagan then?'

"It's my middle name." Reagan explained.

"Ok, well it's a pleasure to meet you Reagan I'm Liesel Cooper" Blondie started before pausing. " Did your parents name you after the Reagan's then?"

Reagan laughed in fact she laughed so hard that she had to grab onto her sides as the idea was ridiculously, she couldn't even remember the last time she had laughed that hard. "God no."

"Lucky." Liesel quipped as her and Reagan continued to walk down the hallway. "My mom has been obsessed with the sound of music since she was a teenager and so she decided to name her only daughter Liesel, you wouldn't believe how many jokes of the sound of the music are."

"Dirty dancing was my mom's vice, god knows what I would have done if she had called me baby." Reagan said before holding out her hand. "Savannah Reagan Cavanaugh."

"Liesel Miranda Cooper." Liesel replies shaking her hand.

As the two of them sat there talking, Reagan was surprised that she found herself to be enjoying Liesel's company despite the fact that her and Liesel seemed to be on two different ends of the spectrum pole that was personality as well as the fact that Reagan had to break her five word pact despite holding it for almost two weeks. But an upside was she didn't have to think slowly and carefully before she said anything because as funny as it was to see how it was trying people's patience it was also very exhausting. The only thing Reagan needed now was a pudding cup and then just maybe this could be one of her first good days in the last few weeks.


	4. Chapter 4

After a long day at the BAU, Emily decided to call it a night and head home so she gathered up the file she had been working on and made her way to Hotch's office, the door way open so she rapped her knuckled on the doorframe before coming in. "I have my assessment of the sexual assaults in Wyoming." Emily said as she handed the file over.

"You heading home?" Hotch questioned as he glanced at the file before placing it on the top of the stack of files on his desk.

Emily nod. "Yeah it's been a long day and I have something's I've got to take care of."

"I was meaning to ask earlier, how's Reagan?" Hotch asked.

Not long after Emily had made the decision to take Reagan, she knew she had to tell Hotch as she suspected that she would have to take some time off and he was currently the only member of the team who was a working parent so she knew he could offer some insight. "Intense." Emily replied using the only word she thought aptly described the teenage girl and she could have sworn that she saw the corners of Hotch's mouth twitch in amusement. "And that's putting it lightly and she's also quiet but when she does speak she's very sarcastic."

"Sounds like a typical teenager, how is she doing?"

"Honestly Hotch, I don't think I could tell you after I picked her up from the airport and took her back to my place we spoke for a few minutes and then she slept for the rest of the weekend. Didn't get up once except for this morning at 6 before deciding that she wanted to start school today. From what I've seen so she's having some difficulties, she seems to be coping with her parents death but it's the adoption that she seems to be struggling to deal with."

"Reagan didn't know." Hotch guessed.

Emily nodded slowly. "Her parents never told her and so her case worker told her when I agreed to sign for custody but it turns out Reagan had already known for years. She connected the dots through the lack of physical resemblance and the work of Gregor Mendel but she never said anything to her parents and now the anger she has over not being told and the general adoption in what's causing her behave the way she is."

"Are you worried?"

"I would be if she wasn't acting like this, these last few weeks have been tough on her and I get that it's been a big shock to her and then moving from the place where she was born and lived most of her life to a new state will take some time to adjust. But feeding her chocolate pudding cups seems to be doing the trick, it keeps her happy and she opens up when she's eating."

"You can't just feed her pudding cups Prentiss, she does need to eat other food." Hotch joked.

"I've tried but she seems hesitant about everything, so far Reagan's only unpacked her clothes, she hasn't touched any of the boxes that contain her personal belongings." Emily explained. "The only thing she seemed certain about was starting school today, in fact she was rather adamant about that."

"My advice would be just to give her time by the sounds of it Reagan is doing as well as can be expected, she'll start coming out of her shell when she feels ready. Just keep doing whatever your doing." Hotch explained.

"Thanks Hotch."

"Anytime Prentiss."

Half an hour after she had left the BAU Emily had arrived back at her apartment and found Reagan sitting on her couch upside down watching the news. And apparently the teen was so engrossed in the news that she failed to notice that Emily was back until Emily held out a pudding cup and spoon in front of her face she got so startled that she fell of the sofa head first. "Oh my god Reagan I didn't mean to startle you but I wanted to give you this." Emily said handing over the pudding cup. "So did you have a good day at school."

Reagan straightened herself up so she was sitting crossed legged on the floor and took the offered pudding cup before scowling at Emily. "No, it's high school..."

"Did something happen? Did the other kids give you a hard time?" Emily questioned as Reagan seemed to look forward to going to school in her own strange way and clearly something had happened apart from falling off the couch to put her in a fowl mood.

"No"

Emily wasn't sure what was going on but she continued anyway. "Did you make any friends?"

"No." Reagan began but then Liesel popped into her head, Reagan had no idea why she corrected Liesel and then spent the rest of the day speaking to her. The two of them were different to put it lightly and they wouldn't have hung out back in Connecticut but the her whole life had just changed in last couple of months so some more changes wouldn't kill her. That and she wasn't sure if she's make any other friends plus that wisecrack Liesel had pulled about her being named after the Reagan's was pretty damn funny and Reagan admitted she hadn't laughed like that in weeks. "Maybe… how was your day?"

There was surprise on Emily's part as Reagan actually seemed to care and that had certainly wasn't what she was expecting to hear. "Okay, it was a bit a bit slow it mostly consisted of doing paperwork."

"Well that's good." Reagan said and she took a deep breath. "Susan told me that you work for the FBI."

"Yeah, I do." Emily said stunned, Reagan had actually said more than five words at a time without any prompting and she actually seemed to want to talk.

"So… what do you do? The fact that you carry a gun doesn't make you seem like a paper pushing type of federal employee."

It would take Emily a few days to realize that Reagan was making a joke. "I work in a special unit called the BAU: the behavioural analysis unit. We provide assistance to local and federal law enforcement by looking at cases from behavioural and investigative perspective. We look at a variety of variables Such as interpreting the offenders behaviour to see what causes they to commit the crimes they do and why they pick particular people."

"So you analyze criminals behaviour?" Reagan summed up.

Emily laughed. "Yeah pretty much and a lot of the time cases we'll be sent cases by detectives and sheriff's and we'll give them an assessment of the situation and a basic profile of who they should be looking for but other times we'll fly out and assist them in the field. Which is something that I wanted to talk to you about, quite often I'll be away for a few days at the time so my neighbour Connie will pop in and check on you when I'm not her."

Reagan frowned. "If you think that the moment you turn your back I'll take off then your mistaken I would have done that when I got here and besides there's nothing left for me in Connecticut."

"What about friends?" Emily asked.

Reagan scoffed. "Don't make me laugh."

"Why not?"

"I'm neurotic, I preferred to be left alone most of the time, I say whatever is on my mind most of the time, I'm headstrong and stubborn something which my mom said wasn't a good combination and overall I'm not the kind of person people want to hang out with. But I'm not the unpleasant person I make myself to be, I can actually be a nice person." Reagan revealed absently mildly as she continued to eat her pudding. "Look can I just throw something out here?"

"Sure go right ahead Reagan." Emily replied.

Reagan sighed. "Look Emily, Susan told me that I had to be grateful for what you're doing for me and I kind of am because foster care kind of sucked. But you don't need to do this tiptoeing thing around me, yeah this who being reunited thing after you gave me up for adoption is pretty awkward to put it lightly. I just thought I'd say it out loud. if it isn't already obvious that I'm pissed that my parents never told me I was adopted and I probably have some abandonment issues stemming from being adopted and my parents dying so if some of my behaviour seems kind of personal than it probably is but not all of it will be, I can be a decent person when I try…" Reagan said before looking around awkwardly.

"Wow…" Emily said and she couldn't help but laugh.

"What's so funny?" Reagan asked looking at Emily as if she had grown another head.

"In the space of five minutes you've spoken more than the entire three days you've been here, so what change that if you don't mind me asking?

"Because everything I could have possibly wanted to say then fitted into five words but now it can't, you're kind of required to speak in school and Susan told me she'd kick my ass if I was still doing it when she comes to check in on me." Reagan revealed with smirk on her face as if she was enjoying some private joke before she handed Emily the empty pudding cup before standing up. "Thanks for the dessert, I'm going to read for a while before I go to bed and before you ask I made myself something to eat, I don't live off pudding cups… as much as I love them I realize that they are not a food group nor can I survive on just them."

"Anything else you want to get off your chest." Emily questioned as Reagan was being surprisingly forth coming with herself today.

Reagan paused momentarily before shaking her head. "No."

"Goodnight then." Emily replied and Reagan rolled her eyes before saluting Emily and leaving the room.

Emily watched as Reagan retreated back to her room and watched the teenage shut the door and she got up to move to the kitchen until she heard a loud crash coming from Reagan's room and she got up to make her way over to see what was wrong. "Stupid box!" Was all that Emily could hear Reagan curse and Emily laughed, she has thought she had figured Reagan out but that girl was something else, always coming out with something new that would surprise Emily.


	5. Chapter 5

Emily walked in the direction of the BAU's conference room after taking a long lunch, she hadn't meant to take a two hour lunch break but she had received a phone call from Reagan informing her that she was getting this irritating pain in her cheeks and that she was certain that one of the brackets in her braces was about to fall out. This ended up with Emily having to pick Reagan up from school to take her to the orthodontics, which ended up being pretty handy as Reagan was practically out of wax as Emily kept forgetting to pick some up. Emily had completely forgotten that Reagan had braces until Reagan reminded her two weeks ago that she was due for a tightening which was another thing added to Emily's to do list in terms of Reagan. During the last three weeks there had been shopping trips for news clothes, doctors appointments and various meetings with Reagan's principal and teachers all to do with helping Reagan to settle in. The orthodontist appointment as just the latest in Emily's never ending appointment so two hours later, after getting Reagan fixed up and grabbing a quick lunch with her before dropping her home Emily headed back to work. The team didn't have a case that required all of their attention so they worked on paperwork and cases that need their assessment so they decided to work in the conference room today so that they could bounce ideas off each other. "Hey I'm back, sorry I took so long…" Emily began and as she walked into the conference room. Everyone excluding Hotch was present and they all stopped their conversation when they noticed Emily. "What's going on?" She asked as something was clearly going on judging by the looks they were all giving each other.

"Emily, you should sit down." Garcia began pulling out a chair.

"Has something happened that I don't know about?" Emily questioned as she hesitantly sat down in the offered chair.

JJ shook her head. "We don't know, that's why we wanted to talk to you Emily we've all noticed that something's been going with you these last few weeks and as your friends we've become worried."

"You've been taking a lot of long lunches and you passed on brunch last week." Garcia said.

"Prentiss, what Garcia is trying to say is that you've been distancing yourself from us these last few weeks and we know that just because we're together all the time that it doesn't mean we have to share anything. We just want you to know that if anything is wrong, that you can come to us." Morgan explained.

"Me? I think their all over exaggerating." Rossi added as he briefly looked up from his case file.

Despite the fact that the whole team promised that they wouldn't profile each other it seemed like they couldn't help themselves and as sweet as it was it could be rather annoying. "I appreciate the concern you guys but there's nothing wrong, in fact everything couldn't be better." Emily stated.

"Are you sure Emily? You're not thinking of leaving the BAU?" Garcia quipped.

"Garcia, where would you get an idea like that?" Emily asked genuinely shocked that her co-workers thought that she would leave them. Sure the pay sucked and they worked non-stop but Emily loved her job and like Garcia had always told them they were a family.

"You've been on the phone constantly and you've had meetings with Hotch and Strauss, which is never usually a good thing, so I just assumed that you were thinking of leaving us…" Garcia admitted.

"Well Penelope, I can assure that this has nothing to do with work it's a personal matter." Emily revealed as she didn't want to say too much as although she had told Reagan about the team she hadn't made up her mind when she should tell the rest of the team about Reagan.

Both JJ's and Garcia's eyes both lit up in interest and Emily couldn't help but roll her eyes as both of them as she was pretty sure what the two women were thinking. As their personal lives had come into their work lives Emily assumed that they were hoping for the same. "Have you met someone?" JJ questioned and Emily couldn't help but notice Rossi and Morgan's bemused expression whilst Reid paid no attention to the conversation as he continued to read the case file he had in his hands.

"There is someone." Emily slowly began figuring whether this was the bets way to tell the team about the recent addition in her life. Emily knew that they wouldn't judge her but explaining it was going to be the hard part. "But it's not what you think."

Garcia's eyes narrowed in interest. "Tell us more…" She prompted.

"I have a daughter." Emily announced and the news was clearly not what the other expected to hear as Emily noted their shocked faces and even Reid a oblivious as was to the previous conversation had picked this titbit of information up and looked up from his file. "I know this is a shock but I will explain everything."

"You're a mom?" Reid slowly asked.

Emily took a baited breath, technically she was a mother but Reagan had a mom who wasn't her and being called mom felt a bit strange because Emily didn't really see herself as a mom. "It's not as easy as that… the lines are a bit blurred."

"Please explain." Morgan questioned as he looked at the others, unsure if they were all hearing the same news that he was hearing.

"We want details, lots of details." Garcia squeaked in response.

"Okay… there's not much to tell but a year before I joined the FBI I was pregnant and at that time I was not ready to be a mom so I decided to give the baby up for adoption. I eventually gave birth to a baby girl and that was the end of it or so I thought. Then six weeks ago I got a phone call from Connecticut social services and they informed me that my daughter's adoptive parents had been killed in a car accident five weeks beforehand. There was no one who could take her in so I agreed to apply for custody and she's been here ever since, these last couple of weeks I've had to leave early because of check ups from social services, meeting with teachers and just now an emergency orthodontist appointment. "

"So you're not leaving the BAU? You just have a daughter…" Reid questioned which sounded more like a general statement than anything else.

Emily laughed at Reid, his cluelessness was very sweet. "Yes."

"What's her name?" Morgan began. "If you don't mind me asking."

"Savannah Cavanaugh." Emily began and she could help but beam when she said her daughter's name. "But as of lately she only answers to her middle name Reagan."

"I want to know more, what's she like?" Garcia asked as her eyes filled up with excitement.

"She's beautiful, absolutely stunning and she's a clever girl but like any fifteen year old teenager Reagan is also very sarcastic but she a sweet girl." Emily said. "It's been a big adjustment moving here for her so it's taken some time for her to come out of her shell and she's great."

"Why didn't you tell us about her?" JJ asked.

"Honestly JJ, it was a long time ago and I didn't think there was any relevance in bringing it up and I thought that I could just leave it in the past but things have changed… I never expected any of this to happen but it has and I'm taking it in my stride –" Emily started.

"Do you have any pictures?" Garcia interrupt. "I'd love to see mini Emily, I bet Savannah looks just like you.

Emily laughed, Garcia wasn't wrong there. "Not on me but I promise you Garcia that you will get to met her but when you do you cannot call her Savannah as objects usually break when that happens."

"Check, I will remember that Mama Prentiss." Garcia replied as she let out an excited squeal. "First Jack, Henry and now Savannah… well technically Savannah came first but who cares? Our BAU family is getting bigger!"


	6. Chapter 6

"So you've been here how many weeks and it's only now that you've decided to unpack your belongings?" Liesel asked as helped Reagan unpack the twenty boxes that were scattered across her bedroom, it had gotten to the point where Reagan was sick of bumping into a box every time she walked in and out of the room that she decided to unpack. Reagan waited until after school to do it because she'd rather not have Emily make a big deal out of it but she knew it would take forever if she did it by herself so she roped in Liesel. Much to Reagan's surprise she found that she liked Liesel and the two of them had become friends despite their differences. Liesel came from a normal home that consisted with two married parents and two siblings whilst Reagan's home life was a wreck.

Reagan put down the hammer in her hand, that was one of the things about Liesel that she had yet to get used to; the fact that Liesel liked to talk. And for someone who had spent most of her life not socialising with people her own age, it was taking sometime to get used to. "Would you rather me not?" Reagan quipped with an actual smile.

"Fair point, so what's Emily going to say when she comes back and see's all of this." Liesel questioned as she unpacked a box filled with an assortment of sketchbooks and pens. "Where do these go?"

"The sketchbooks go on the second top shelf of the bookcase and the pens go in the top draw of my desk." Reagan said picked up her hammer and preceded to bang the nail into the wall before hanging a rather large framed photo above her bed. "Is that straight?"

Liesel stopped what she was doing and looked at Reagan's work before squinting one of here eyes and holding out the thumb. "Looks good enough to me." She replied and Reagan shrugged her shoulders before moving on to a new box. In less than two hours they had unpacked the majority of the boxes and now had two remaining. "So you didn't answer my question, that mean you don't want to talk about it?"

"I completely missed the question, sorry Liesel…" Reagan said.

"I asked, what's Emily going to say when she comes back and see's all of this?" Liesel repeated motioning to Reagan's room, which now looked like somebody actually lived there.

"God knows I dread to think, this whole profiling thing she does freaks me out so I don't even want to go there, god knows what she thinks of me already." Reagan stated as she started unpacking a box full of shoes, she thought what Emily did was interesting but the idea of Emily scrutinizing her behaviour and analyzing it for a deeper meaning freaked the hell out of Reagan. As she unpacked the box she noticed Liesel went to go for the last box and she turned around. "That box isn't to opened!" Reagan cried and Liesel stepped away from the box with her hands held up in defence "Sorry I'm just not ready to open that box, it's got all my parents things in it…"

"Oh…" Liesel said very slowly.

"It's fine." Reagan replied as she picked the box up and stuck it at the back of her wardrobe, Liesel had already known about Reagan's parents being dead and Reagan had told her about Emily and their situation.

"You miss them." Liesel noted.

"I'd be a bad daughter if I didn't and I know it's only been three months but the grief isn't crippling me anymore, I know that they're dead and nothing I can do will ever bring them back. And like my social worker back home tells me; they'd want to me to be happy and live my life."

"It must be weird going from living with them to Connecticut to leaving here in D.C. with the woman who gave you up for adoption."

Reagan nodded, as different as her as Liesel were somehow Liesel managed to get it. "The whole adoption thing is a grey matter at the moment, we both know that it there hanging over both our heads but it's easier if we don't talk about it. Not that Emily hasn't asked if I want to talk about it… it's just weird talking to her about it. She is after all the one who gave me up in the first place..."

"Have you asked about your biological father?"

"No but from what I know, he didn't stick around after him and Emily graduated college and if he was any kind of decent guy he would have stuck around and yeah ever since I found out I was adopted I've wondered but I had a dad Liesel, one who loved me very much and who wanted to be my father and who I was proud to call my dad." Reagan began as she glanced at the box that was now in her wardrobe, the irony of her statement wasn't lost of her as she claimed to be proud of her father but he was hiding his things at the back of her wardrobe. "Can we not talk about this anymore? I just feel weird talking about parents…"

Liesel laughed as she sat down on the floor of Reagan's floor. "Sure, what do you want to talk about?"

Reagan sat on her bed as an idea formed in her head, as Liesel liked asking her a lot of questions she'd figured the favour should be returned. "Question Liesel, you and I clearly run in different social circles so why talk to me to on my first day of school?"

"Apart from the fact that Principal Harding asked me to show you around? I don't know Rae… you just seem different to everyone else."

"Different like how? As in I'm the kid that everyone avoids because I'm super weird not to mention creepy?" Reagan asked with a hint of scepticism in her voice.

Shaking her head Liesel couldn't help but laugh. "You just don't seem to care about what other people think about you… it's like you have your own world and everyone else is on the outside trying to look in. I found it interesting, plus before you came along I didn't have anyone else. I'm not the kind of person that people flock to and beg to be their friend." Liesel said and at the last part she looked away as if she was ashamed.

Reagan knew that Liesel was something else so they were completely different but somehow they were very similar in terms of being alone and needing a friend. But they had each other now and in Reagan's eyes everything was good and so she threw a pillow at Liesel's head to get her attention. "Hey…you're the first friend I've ever had who's been close in age to me who I can talk to, don't forget it Cooper… I need you just as much as you need me."

Liesel managed a smile. "We both sound like such losers, you do realize that Reagan?"

"Proud of it and for losers, I think we're pretty damn cool." Reagan retorted. "And that's coming from the girl who lives in her own little world."


	7. Chapter 7

Emily was pleasantly surprised when she got a call on her phone from security to say that Reagan was in the building and she left the conference room to go meet Reagan at the elevator. She was going to working late and she had told Reagan she could stop by the office if she had nothing to do and Reagan just rolled her eyes but apparently she had changed her mind. When the elevator doors opened Reagan walked out slowly and stopped when she reached Emily. "You finally get bored at home?" Emily questioned as she tried not to laugh and even the corners of Reagan's mouth twitched in amusement.

"Whatever." Reagan quipped as she took off her red beret and as she did she couldn't help but notice Emily starting at her. "What's with the staring Emily? It's freaking me out…"

"You cut your hair?" Emily questioned.

"Yeah… Liesel and I went to the mall earlier and I was bored so I figured I'd get it cut and go for a change, why does it look bad?" Reagan asked narrowing her eyes at Emily suspiciously.

Emily shook her head, Reagan's naturally long and dark wavy hair now sat just above her shoulders and Emily thought she looked beautiful. "No it looks very nice, it suits you. So where's Liesel you two have been thick as thieves recently?"

"Napa with her family they've gone to visit her grandma or something I think, I wasn't really listening." Reagan replied waving her hand in a frivolous manner.

So she was lonely. Emily thought to herself as if Reagan wasn't at home then she was with Liesel doing god knows what all Emily knew was that the two of them had become close friends despite their differences. So she was used to seeing Liesel hanging out with Reagan at her brownstone, what really struck Emily was that Liesel occasionally called Reagan by her given name of Savannah and Reagan answered to it without any qualms. Where as if Emily had done that, something would have broke and a week ago Emily asked her about it and typically Reagan behaviour involved her shrugging her shoulders but her response was very surprising. 'I don't know why, maybe it's because Liesel's the first friend I have had in years I guess she's kind of my best friend.' Reagan told Emily which had stunned her completely. "Well I'm going be here a while but we've just had dinner delivered, do you want to meet the rest of my team and have a bite to eat?" Emily asked.

Reagan looked sceptical and Emily could tell that she was debating the idea. "Sure, why not? I'm always hungry."

"I've told them all about you and don't be worried about them profiling you because we have way to much work to be doing." Emily assured Reagan as she led Reagan back into the BAU taking a deep sigh of relief, Garcia would have killed her if she had found out that Reagan had been here and she never got a chance to meet her. The technical analyst had been on her case for two weeks on when she would be able to meet Reagan. It got to the point where Emily had caught Garcia digging into Reagan which didn't turn up much as Reagan wasn't on any social networking sites, the only thing Garcia had got was a bank statement which said Reagan was spending $20 a week on pudding cups and buying an awful amount of pens. Then there was Reagan's school picture for her school id but Reagan's fringe was primarily in the way of Garcia getting a good look but she did find out – much to Emily's relief that Reagan was doing very well in school. Emily decided not to mention any of that to Reagan as the girl was already weary of what Emily did for a living so finding out that one of her co-workers had been digging into her would just unnerve her even more. As they walked into the conference room everyone stopped eating as the two of them walked in. "Everyone I'd like to introduce you Reagan Cavanaugh." Emily began.

"Hey!" Reagan replied held up a hand and waved ever so slightly but after a moment no one said anything and Reagan turned to Emily. "All of them are staring at me like I have two heads…" she murmured.

Emily looked at Morgan before kicking his chair to get him to stop staring, she had told them all about Reagan and the fact that the two of them looked very alike so she didn't get why they were so surprised. Morgan glanced at Emily before getting up and holding his hand out to Reagan. "It's a pleasure to finally meet you Reagan, I'm Derek Morgan."

The introductions were soon made and once they were done Garcia got up and walked over to Reagan and hugged her. "Emily has told me so much about you Savannah!" Garcia began before stopping and Reagan glared over at Emily. "I'm sorry Reagan, Emily told me that you only go by Reagan now and it just came out!"

"It's fine." Reagan said as Garcia pulled up a chair right next to her for Reagan.

"So tell us all about yourself Reagan, what do you like doing?" JJ asked.

"I don't know what to say, there's not much to say apart from I like to eat pudding cups and draw occasionally if I'm not sleeping." Reagan replied.

"You're an artist?" Garcia questioned.

"I don't know about that, but you can take a look for yourself." Reagan said as she opened her bag and handing Garcia a black sketchbook whilst taking another one out as well as a pen.

"Manga?" Garcia asked impressed as she flicked through Reagan's sketchbook. "Baby girl, you have such talent, how long have you been drawing for?"

"I've been drawing since I was a kid but I got into manga about four years ago after a trip to Tokyo and ever since then I've just kept drawing and honing in on my craft. I pour my heart and soul into all my drawings." Reagan said much to Emily's surprise as not once since she had been there did Reagan bring any of this up but she had noticed the twenty sketchbooks on Reagan's bookshelf.

Garcia passes the sketchbook along and the rest of them team all went through it. "So you're drawing an actual manga?" Rossi asked.

Reagan shook her head as she started drawing in her second sketchbook. "No, that book is just my life story, I figured why write your life story when you can draw it? It was supposed to be a gift but now it's just something I keep doing. It'll be something nice to look back on in fifty or sixty years."

"Wow… Garcia is right Reagan these are really amazing. Is there any particular artist that influence you?"

"A few, mainly Naoko Takeuchi, Arina Tanemura and a few others, it's more like the quality of work more than anything." Reagan explained. The group all sat there and talked about various of topics whilst they ate, with Reagan sharing with Emily much to the group's surprised but not Emily's, she was more than used to Reagan picking things off her plate when they were at home. After they had finished eating, Reagan continued to draw whilst talking with Garcia, while the others were doing paperwork.

"Hey Reid, I need a statistic on arsons involving structures…" Morgan began.

"43.4%."

Morgan turned to Reagan in surprise, as did everyone else. "Excuse me?" he slowly asked.

"That's the percentage of how many arsons are committed involving structures over all but individually the percentage for residents are much higher because of revenge attacks or bogus insurance claims for 2008, the stats for this year aren't even out." Reagan wirily commented as she continued to sketch.

"Reagan if you don't mind me asking, how did you know that?" Hotch questioned.

"My dad is a firefighter." Reagan began before realizing what she said and she looked down slightly and took a deep breath before looking up again. "I mean he was a firefighter and I spent more time at the station house then I did at home and you tend to pick up things like that as well as being very fire conscientious." It turned out that Reagan knew a lot about statics revolving around fires and arsons as well as general fire related information, which handily helped Morgan who was doing an assessment of arsons taking place in Reno. After she had finished giving a very helpful hand Reagan decided to head home and Emily refused to let her go so far by herself despite Reagan's best efforts. Before the two of them left Reagan handed Garcia a picture she had drawn of the BAU in the manga style and despite Reagan claiming it wasn't her best work, Emily thought it was fantastic as did the others to which Garcia had enlisted Morgan to find a frame and a hammer so she could put it in her office wall. It wouldn't be till the next time that Emily went into Garcia's office that she would noticed that Reagan like any artist had signed her name in the corner as Savannah R. Cavanaugh

"Thanks for the lift back, although I could have gotten home by myself Emily." Reagan told Emily when they arrived back home.

"It was my pleasure." Emily replied as she followed Reagan into her bedroom where once she had dropped her jacket, hat and bag onto her desk chair she rummaged through her wardrobe before pulling out a cardboard box and put it on her bed. "What are you doing?"

"Unpacking the last thing that I've been avoiding." Reagan replied as she opened the box before peaking in and scooting closer Emily also took a peak and her eyes widened as she what was at the top of the box.

"That was your dad's helmet, wasn't it?" Emily asked as she spotted Reagan picking it up out of the one box she hadn't unpacked since she had arrived. After the help she gave the team earlier, it must have made her sentimental and she made the decision to open the box.

"Yeah it is. When I was about eight my dad caught me running around the firehouse with his helmet and he sat me down because he wanted to have a talk with me. He told me that a firefighter's helmet is a very sacred thing as well as just being something that keeps them safe. He said that for those who are in the fire service who dedicate themselves and their lives to helping other it's a symbol of protection… it's also the only piece of equipment their allowed to take when they retire." Reagan said before pausing to take a deep breath. "When a firefighter dies, the helmet is given to the family by a member of his company after the funeral as a memento and as a thanks from the fire service for their lost one's service. It's gives fire families one last thing to hold on to… my dad had been off duty for about forty minutes when he died but it was decided that he would be buried with full honours…"

"It must mean a lot to you."

Reagan nodded as she place the helmet on the top shelf of her bookcase. "This helmet is my most prized possession, even more than any of my sketchbooks and helping Morgan today made me realize that I shouldn't be hiding this stuff away. My dad was a hero and my mom was great too and just because they're both not here anymore doesn't mean I'm not any less proud of who they are."

"Susan is going to be very proud of you."

Reagan laughed. "I've unpacked a box and made one friend so she's going to be ecstatic, Susie Q was starting to worry that she'd be my only friend.

"I'm your friend."

"You don't count for obvious reasons." Reagan replied, referring to the fact that Emily was technically her mother and Emily was surprised at the lack of bitterness in her voice. It seemed like Reagan actually meant what she said and was seeing Emily as more than the woman who took her in after giving her up fifteen years ago.


	8. Chapter 8

Reagan sat in the living room coach idly finishing off her geometry homework when she heard the front door open and she didn't even have to look up to know that it was Emily. Seeing as Emily hadn't called to say she was flying off somewhere for a case so that crossed of Connie being the one coming through the door. "Hey I brought some food…" Emily began as she put her things on the living room before joining Reagan on the couch with a plastic bag that contained Chinese food.

Not one to pass up the chance to eat Reagan put her homework to the side and happily took the food and the two of them began to eat in a relative silence with the tv making the only noise in the background. Whilst Reagan continued to eat for a while until she realized something was wrong. Emily was never this quiet when she came home, usually she'd ask Reagan a million questions about school and what her and Liesel had been getting up to. "Emily? You okay? Don't take this the wrong way but you seem kind of depressed…" Reagan started.

Emily smiled wearily. "It's just been a tough day."

Reagan rolled her eyes on pure instinct, she was supposed to be the emotionally cripple one here not Emily. "And?"

"Hotch's wife was murdered today."

Crap. Reagan thought. Her and her insensitive big mouth, her mother was right she did need some sensitivity training and maybe a zipper over her mouth. That was the last thing she was expecting to hear, Reagan was expecting to hear about a mountain of paperwork not that a member of her team had lost a loved one. "What happened?" Reagan crocked out.

"An UnSub went after his family and that's all I can really say." Emily slowly said and Reagan nodded slowly before she realized what Emily said. If an UnSub could co after Hotch's family that meant if Emily pissed one of hard enough that it could come after her. Thinking about it made Reagan's head hurt as she realized she'd have to be looking over her shoulder every time Emily went to work. "Don't worry Reagan, nothing's going to happen to you."

Emily's words here helpful but didn't exactly deny the possibility of something like that happening. "W-what about Hotch's son? You did say he had a son, right? I'm not making things up now…" Reagan rambled.

"Jack's good, he's with Hotch and before you ask the UnSub is dead so he won't be able to harm anyone else." Emily explained. "Nothing happened to him… he wasn't in the room when it happened."

"That's something, poor kid... at least he has Hotch." Reagan said nodding more than was actually needed but she was glad to hear that Hotch's son was okay because he was a kid and it was wrong to kill kids. Well it was wrong to kill people anyway but the gist was there. "Is there going to be a funeral?"

"I suspect so."

"Well I'm come with you, so let me know."

Emily looked at Reagan in surprise, she was acting unlike herself and the offer to come to Haley's funeral was unusual as according to Susan, Reagan had refused to go to her parents funeral until twenty minutes before it even started and even then she had to be bribed with $20 and food. So apart of Emily was worried about Reagan coming with her especially since it would be a funeral for someone who lost a mom like Reagan did. "How is it that you don't gain any weight despite the fact your constantly eating?" Emily asked moving the subject along.

Reagan laughed as she swallowed another bit of chicken before stealing a piece of broccoli form Emily's Chinese container. "High metabolism I suppose and apart from taking part in gym Liesel and I go running in Stanton park with this guy Jake from school whose on the track team every Sunday."

"That's where you disappear to every Sunday morning?" Emily questioned in surprise as for the last few weeks Reagan had been disappearing at the crack of dawn before reappearing just before eleven. The fact that Reagan was going out running was a surprise, as Reagan didn't exactly seem like the running or fitness type seeing as she spent most of her time sleeping.

"Trust me when I say it wasn't my idea, Liesel roped me into it saying I owed her because she's gained almost 10 pounds since she's met me and she said if she has to suffer than so do I." Reagan replied.

"You don't seem to upset about it." Emily noted.

Reagan shrugged her shoulders. "I would be if Jake and Liesel didn't buy me a milkshake and two donuts afterwards."

"Wait… so you go out running just to eat afterwards?" Emily said trying her best not to laugh at that weird setup but if anyone was going to do something like that then it would be Reagan.

"It's tiring and Jake always makes us go for a further twenty minutes when we're almost finished and so I get an extra donut if I don't complain about it and you know me… I don't turn down food for anything." Reagan said as she affectionately rubbed her stomach.

"So this guy Jake? Do you or Liesel like him?" Emily asked as this seemed to be the only reason that Reagan would be up before midday on a Sunday.

"No way Emily, it's hoe's before bro's." Reagan said shaking her head at Emily's suggestion. "It's so not like that as Jake is Liesel's lab partner and we sit next to each other in world history and geometry. Besides he's our friend and Liesel likes this other guy but that is another story which I'm so not going into at the moment."

"What? Go back to this hoe's before bro's stuff." Emily questioned as she tried to absorb everything that Reagan had just told her in that rather large mouthful.

Reagan sighed in amusement. "Never mind you wouldn't get it."

"Okay… so you've made a new friend, that's good you must get along really well if he's hanging out with you and Liesel for this long."

"Yeah… we're kind of a gang, we call yourself Tom, Dick and Harry." Reagan explained as she put her container down and started on the spring rolls.

"Why the usual threesome group? Why not the three stooges or something else like that?"

"Because we're a bunch of nobodies, a set of nobodies; persons of no note, we're not the popular kids or jocks and we're not part of some stereotypical high school clique and that's how we like it. We're a bunch of nobodies who enjoy the company of other nobodies."

Emily didn't even want to know how the three of them came up with an idea like that although she'd later find out that Liesel's father had came up with it as an odd term of endearment for the trio. "So whose who?"

"We don't know, we're a bunch of nobodies so we didn't assign particular names as anyone could be a Tom, Dick or Harry." Reagan said as she shook her head at how slow Emily was being before murmuring how old people never understand anything and Emily laughed at the absurdity of the whole thing as Reagan certainly made things interesting especially on days like this.


	9. Chapter 9

Funerals were something that Reagan had gotten used to attending as she had been to a fair few in her time, her parents funeral being the most recent one of them all excluding today's funeral. Despite the fact that Reagan had never met Hotch's wife she had gone to the funeral to pay her respects and do the whole supportive thing as the BAU were this family and it was the right thing to do. But it was the wakes that Reagan couldn't stand as she found them to be awkward and stifling as nobody ever knew what to say and so they were filled with small talk and often bad food. However it wasn't about her so Reagan sucked it up and behaved herself because it was the right and polite thing to do. As she wondered around the reception where the wake was being held Reagan came across a small little boy who was trying to reach his napkin that was way out of his reach. "Hey kiddo, you need some help?" Reagan asked as she picked the napkin up and handed it back to the small child.

"Thank you." The boy replied as he wiped his mouth before pushing his plate away and taking a sip of his orange juice.

Reagan sat down on the chair next to the boy who she took to be Hotch's son seeing as he was the only kid apart from her who was at the funeral and the wake. "You're Jack, right?" she questioned.

"Yeah." Jack replied nodding his head.

"I'm Savannah." Reagan replied as she introduced herself using her given name as she didn't want to confuse the young boy by telling him that she goes by her middle name instead of her first name.

Jack gave Reagan a small wave. "Hi Savannah."

"I bet there is about a million things you'd rather be doing than sitting here in a big room with a bunch of people you don't know or can't even remember… so do you want to do something fun like draw a picture for your dad?" Reagan questioned and Jack nodded his head so Reagan pulled out a small drawing pad, a pencil, a pen and she took a few sheets of paper out of the pad and handed some over to Jack along with the pencil. "You know my mom's in heaven like your mom… so is my dad so even though I'm a big kid I understand why you're sad."

"Who looks after you then? If you don't have a mom or dad?" Jack questioned.

"A woman called Emily who works with your dad looks after me now, she's kind of like my mom but she isn't it's kind of complicated but I live with her and she looks after me. You probably don't understand half of what I'm saying are you Jack?" Reagan asked and the small boy shook his head. "I thought so but what I was trying to say is that everything's going to be okay. You have your dad so everything will work out somehow…"

Jack nodded as he continued to draw and Reagan started on her own drawing until Emily made her way over to the two of them. "Reagan I have to go… we have a case but Will's going to drop you off home is that okay?" Emily said.

"Sure that's fine, go do what you have to." Reagan replied not at all surprised that Emily was taking off as the woman worked insane hours and after leaving her some cash Emily was gone, leaving Reagan and Jack to their drawings until Reagan had finished with hers and she watched as Jack kept going with his as Hotch approached them

"Hey buddy, have you and Reagan been drawing pictures?" Hotch asked and Jack scrunched up his nose in confusion at the name.

"Daddy that's Savannah." Jack stated with a shake of his head as he pointed to Reagan.

"My mistake Jack, now can you go find Aunt Jessica and check that she's okay for me?" Hotch questioned and after a moments thought Jack slid off his seat and waved at Reagan before walking off to find his aunt. "Thank you, he's been very quiet the last few days…"

Reagan nodded, she knew what Hotch was talking about all to well as she had lived it mere months ago herself. "You don't have to explain, I know the feeling..."

"How did you know that he like to draw?"

"Wild guess and I did the exact same thing at my parents wake, I drew to escape from everything as it stopped me from being overwhelmed by everything and even though Jack's younger than me the same principles apply as kids sometimes need to escape from something like this too." Reagan began as she looked at hers and Jack drawings and she had to stop herself from laughing as Jack drew people the exact same way she used to as a kid. "You have an adorable son and I think that Jack will be okay… I know I'm only fifteen and not a professional or anything but Jack has you and believe me that will make this easier for him to cope with. What I wouldn't do to have one of my parents here with me…"

Hotch nodded his head briefly. "How are you doing?"

Reagan hated being asked that question especially when the person who was asking it was referring to how she'd been coping with her parents death. But Hotch wasn't anybody, he had just lost his ex wife and his son had lost his mother and Reagan could relate to him or rather Jack on the subject. "Okay it's been a few months now but I haven't had any of those first events without my parents as all of our birthdays were in spring. So I suspect the holidays are going to be hard as my mom loved Christmas but I'm taking it one day at a time and Emily's here for me and they say it get's easier…"


	10. Chapter 10

Stepping out of the elevator Emily walked into the BAU and headed straight to her desk instead of making herself a coffee and found that Reid and Morgan were both already in the bullpen sitting at their own desk as well as Garcia who was talking with them or rather flirting with Morgan and playfully teasing Reid. As she reached her desk Emily put her bag on the floor and slid off coat before sitting down. "Welcome back Emily!" Reid greeted warmly.

"Do anything interesting during the holidays Prentiss?" Morgan questioned.

"No not really, I spent some time with my parents but primarily it was just me and Reagan so it was pretty quiet this year." Emily revealed as she started to reorganize her desk to avoid starting on her small mountain of paperwork that had mysteriously gotten taller and Emily suspected Morgan had something to do with it as she knew Reid would never

Garcia's face lit up and the sound of Reagan's name. "And how was Reagan's first Christmas here? I want to hear everything! She must have been s excited!" Garcia squealed in pure excitement.

"It was tough. She knew it was going to be hard but I don't think she expected it to be as difficult as it was. She's been coping with her parents death rather well but the holidays have kind of pushed her back slightly, they say that the first year is the hardest. She cried herself to sleep three nights in a row, from Christmas Eve to Boxing Day and she's spent of most of the holidays eating, sleeping or holed up in her room." Emily revealed, taking a deep breath after she had finished. The holidays had been extremely tough for obvious reasons but it was the turmoil that Reagan was in that was really bothering Emily, the fact that Reagan had agreed to visit Emily's parents without any argument or use of sarcasm was a sure enough sigh that something was wrong. As the week before Reagan was doing anything she could to not see Emily's parents. "I offered to take her to Connecticut if she wanted to visit her parents graves but she refused, Reagan didn't offer any explanation at first but then she told me that she wasn't strong enough to do it."

Morgan shook his head slowly and very carefully. "It's not surprising, kid's had a really rough year."

"Has she spoken to anyone about it? Because I have a bunch of numbers–" Garcia began.

Emily smiled, she appreciated her co-workers concern for Reagan especially Garcia who had lost her parents in a practically identical manner to how Reagan's parents died when she was eighteen. She might actually ask Garcia to talk to Reagan in the near future. "You have to be very careful with Reagan as she's very fragile although you wouldn't suspect it with the ten foot tall wall and sarcasm she surrounds herself with. If I take an inch she moves back a meter so it's best not to push her, when she's ready Reagan will say something."

"What about friends? Does she have anyone her own age she can talk to? Perhaps that might help?" Morgan added.

"Reagan only has three friends, two of which are friends from school and the other one is her social worker back in Connecticut. From what I know she hasn't had many friends before and Reagan's admitted that she doesn't make friends easily but the ones she has made here have been good for her. And they know about the accident and everything else so they've been doing their best to take Reagan's mind of everything, they've been going out and doing activities…"

"You sound worried." Garcia noted.

Emily was worried. Liesel, Jake and Susan were all worried too. Reagan had been withdrawing into herself again, eating pudding cups like it was no tomorrow and had taken to dressing in only black and dark coloured clothing again. She was behaving in the exact way as when her parents died and she had first moved to D.C. a few months ago. But the problem now way how did they go about helping Reagan as this was Reagan they were dealing with and one false move could have her going off the rails and getting in trouble and that was the last thing that anyone wanted. With Reagan's sixteenth birthday a few months away as well as the first anniversary of Horace and Amanda Cavanaugh's death, things weren't going to be easy if Christmas had been anything to go by. "I am worried and it's a worrying time and being a teenage seems to get increasingly harder these days but Reagan is a strong girl and if these last six months have been anything to go by then she'll bounce back from this. It'll just take sometime, her own body weight in pudding cups and lost of support from those who care about her but she'll get there." Emily admitted, even though Reid, Morgan or Garcia weren't parents, they all had enough personal experiences and memories of being a teenager to relate to Reagan and help Emily out.

"She's lucky to have you." Reid said. "If anyone can help her get through it than it's you."

Emily couldn't help but beam at the compliment that Reid had given her. "It's the other way around, I'm lucky to have her."

"You know what you sound like?" Garcia began. "A mom."

It was weird that in the four months that Reagan had been living with Emily, the sullen teenager had made quite an impact on Emily with her checked shirts, doc martens, never ending ink and pudding cup stained clothes and the never ending supply of sarcasm but for all that she was still the sweet girl with the most beautiful eyes and smile. Emily couldn't imagine life without her anymore, as Savannah Cavanaugh was one those people who walked into a person's life – or stomped in Reagan's case and changed a person's life without realizing it.


	11. Chapter 11

"Hey sleepy head, you ready?"

Reagan looked at Jake it was 10am on a Sunday morning and Reagan was with Jake in Stanton Park getting ready for their weekly run but this time with no Liesel who had couldn't make it this week. Nodding her head slowly the two of them began their run in Stanton Park but less than a minute after they started to run Reagan stopped in her tracks. "There's something wrong with Liesel." Reagan blurted out.

"Other than the fact that she's your friend." Jake questioned,

Normally Reagan could deal with Jake's harmless jibes about her but this time it wasn't about her, it was about Liesel and this had been bugging her all morning ever since Liesel had cancelled on them. "I'm being serious Jacob, so enough with the wisecracks..."

Jake sighed as he ran his hand through his hair. "I know you are Savannah, I've noticed it as well the last couple of weeks but I just haven't been sure of what I should do.

"If you've know this long then why didn't you say anything to me earlier Jake?"

"Sometimes you're really oblivious to the things that are going on around you Reagan, recently more so than ever since the holidays and I didn't want to say anything because I didn't want to bother you when you've been having such a hard time and you've only just gotten back on your feet." Jake revealed.

Reagan knew Jake had a point, she had been out of it the last two or three weeks since Christmas and Jake and Liesel had really been there for her, snapping her out of her holidays blues and trying their best to make sure she didn't relapse into the old Reagan. "I know and I'm sorry that I've been such a wreck and you guys have been going out of your way to help me and I haven't been appreciative of everything you've done but I am. It's just hard because I'm not used to have friends especially ones like you and Liesel… And I know that I am oblivious to certain things but I'm working on it…" Reagan rambled.

Jake laughed as he placed both of his hands on Reagan's shoulder. "Rae you don't have to apologize, part of the reason why Liesel and I are here and your friends is because we like you the way you are, oblivious and sarcastic as you may be. We're your friends and we knew what you've been through and we knew that the holidays were going to be hard as are the next few months but friends are there through the good and bad not just for Christmas.

Reagan shook her hands in a frivolous manner. "Okay, let's not focus on me and my never ending problems… now something's wrong with Liesel and we need to figure it out because not only is it weird but it's freaking me out that she's acting so unlike herself and more like–"

"–You when you go into your quiet and moody modes or as I like to call it Savannah's dark and creepy place." Jake finished and Reagan wasn't sure whether to laugh or roll her eyes, so she did neither. "Liesel's been awfully quiet recently, not to mention that she seems to be tired all the time, then she got that B in French last week and she wasn't even bothered."

"Liesel has her heart set on going to Yale and she wouldn't let anything get in her way so something must be really wrong if her grades are dropping… then she didn't want to want to come running today and there's no way she's cancelling seeing as she doesn't stop giving me grief about the amount of weight she's gained since she met me… god something is really wrong Jake." Reagan admitted, as she thought about Liesel's behaviour in the last two weeks.

"What are we going to do?" Jake questioned. "Talk to her parents."

Reagan shrugged her shoulders, for the first time in god knows how long she didn't know what to do as there wasn't an dummies guide to Liesel like the dummies guide to Savannah Reagan Cavanugh that Susie Q had made for Emily as a Christmas gift. "Let's not get ahead of ourselves, we may just be over reacting so we should go talk to someone else before we confront Liesel or go to her parents?"

"Like who?"

"Emily?"

"Are you asking or telling me that we should go talk to your mother?" Jake questioned.

"I don't know and will you stop referring to her as my mother because even though she biologically is, Emily is not my mother. But my point was Emily studies people's behaviour for a living–"

"–Yeah! Serial killers Reagan and I don't think Liesel has gone that far!" Jake retorted.

That was actually a worrying thought to Reagan but she so didn't want to go down that path right now. "Not every case she works is on serial killers and she has this kind of speciality in child advocacy plus Emily seems like the person you can got to in a crisis…"

Jake shrugged his shoulders in uncertainty. "I guess but how would we go about it…"

"Just come out with it, if we get all nervous about it Emily will know something's wrong as she knows that I don't tend to beat around the bush about anything." Reagan stated. "And we can't use the I have a friend thing, Emily knows I only have three friends and she knows I wouldn't talk to her about my thirty year old social worker so that only leaves you and Cooper."

"Okay so we do this." Jake said nodding his head in determination.

"Now?" Reagan questioned as she looked down at her running clothes, she had been expecting to go for an agonizing long run to be fed with doughnuts after not get dressed in her running and get to the park just to decided to go home and talk to Emily.

"You have any better time to ask?"

"Well no…"

"Then what's the hesitation? Is she out of town?"

"No."

"Then there's no problem Rae, the sooner we get this done the sooner we can figure out what's wrong with Liesel and then we can fix her! So what's with the hesitation?" Jake demanded.

Reagan sheepishly looked down at her feet, she felt so bad about what she was thinking about especially as this was all about Liesel. "I'm just trying to remember if there are any pudding cups in the apartment, that's all…"

Jake just stared at Reagan before shaking his head but even Reagan could make out the tiny smirk in the corner of his face as Jake tried his best not to laugh. "You know you don't make it easy to be your friend?"


	12. Chapter 12

Emily was surprised when Reagan returned from her run much earlier than expected especially with Jake in tow. Jake or Jacob Fisher as he actual name was, happened a friend of Reagan's and part of her Tom, Dick and Harry group and even through Reagan had know him less than she had known Liesel they happened to be good friends as far as Emily could see. But what surprised Emily even more than the sight of the two of them in their running gear was when Reagan said that they/she needed her help. "Can we forget about the fact that I'm doing something that I don't usually do and focus on the task here?" Reagan huffily said after Emily had to get Reagan to repeat what she had said much to the girl's displeasure.

"Okay, so you think something's wrong is Liesel… what makes you think that?" Emily asked, she was pretty certain that this was a big step in her and Reagan's relationship as Reagan was very emotionally distant and so for her to approaching Emily for help, kind of spoke volumes about how far they had come since she had moved in.

"She's behaving like Rae." Jake stated much to the irritation of Reagan and the amusement of Emily. "You know the mood swings, being eerily quiet but then she always seems to be tired and her grades are starting to slip."

"Right…" Emily said not sure where this was exactly leading.

"Liesel wants to go to YALE! Geez Emily, keep up with what I tell you."

"Pipe down and go eat something Savannah." Jake retorted with a roll of her eyes and Emily was once again surprised when Reagan actually responded to Jake and her first name and went off in the direction of the kitchen. "Forgive her manners, we're working on it…"

Emily just nodded in amazement, she was pretty sure Jake and Liesel were miracle workers of some sort, as they seemed to be teaching Reagan compassion and empathy, not that Reagan was a sociopath and felt nothing. But her years of isolation made it hard for her to interact with people especially ones her own age but Jake and Liesel seemed to be helping her with that. It was incredibly what two friends could do for an incredibly lonely teenage girl and to see that lonely girl try and to the same for a friend made Emily incredibly proud. "So why'd you decide to come and ask for my help?" Emily questioned.

"Well we weren't really sure where to start with this, whether we should go to Liesel's parents of directly to her and Rae suggested you seeing as you study people's behaviour for a living." Jake replied as Reagan walked back into the room with none other then her favourite accessory; a pudding cup but also carrot sticks which she put on the coffee table. But a look from Jake made Reagan begrudgingly pick up the carrot sticks and put the pudding cup down.

"You can read people where as I don't, so I thought you might be able to help but if your too hung up on the fact I'm asking for help I can always go somewhere else…" Reagan said and it sounded very much like a veiled threat, although it was hard for Emily to take it seriously whilst Reagan was glaring at her whilst munching on carrot sticks.

Emily couldn't get much past her, for a girl who apparently lived in her own world most of the time she could be pretty observant when she wanted to be. "So how long has Liesel been behaving out of character? Has this been happening for a while or is it recent?"

Reagan shrugged her shoulders. "I don't really know I've kind of been in my own world for the last couple of weeks so you'd have to ask Jake but she's been acting off for at least the last two weeks. She cancelled our weekly run and we all know the only reason I go is because Liesel forces me and then there is the promise of food afterwards…"

"It started just before Christmas but then we kind of got side track with _things_ and she was back to herself." Jake said referring to old Reagan resurfacing during the holidays. "But since we went back to school she's been acting weird again."

"Okay so she's withdrawn, moody and tired, is Liesel having any problems other than the obvious? Like boy troubles or having difficulties at home?" Emily questioned.

Reagan and Jake looked at each other. "Not that we've seen, I mean there is that guy at school who Liesel likes but he's a complete toolbox because I sit next to him biology and he–"

"Focus Rae!" Jake hissed.

"Oh right, yeah… anyway I'm not exactly the person you'd go to for advice about relationships but there is no way that this is about some boy. Because Liesel is like the next Hilary Clinton or something and she is not going to let some toolbox stop her from world domination. She's all into the feminism thing and being independent…"

"Home issues? Has there been any problems or recent changes in her home life, like an illness or a death." Emily pressed.

"We were at her house the other day and everything seemed fine, we did studied for a bit, watched a movie and her parents insisted that we stay for dinner, Mr. Cooper even drove us both home." Jake said with a shake of his head. "I don't think anyone is ill and as far as I know her paternal grandparents are still alive, her maternal ones died a few years ago."

"An eating disorder?"

Reagan bit her lip as she pondered the idea. "I don't know, Liesel does eat but I can't really say how much as I don't have exactly have the most normal eating habits or appetite myself… Emily do you really think it's something that serious?"

"The changes in Liesel's behaviour can be seen as symptoms of a multitude of disorders like depression or anorexia but I'm not a doctor so I can't give you a definite answer. But it does sound like something is wrong and I'd advise you to talk to Liesel and see if you can't get her to open up. If that doesn't work, come back to me and then the three of us will go and talk to Mr. and Mrs. Cooper." Emily said and it was clear on Reagan and Jake's face that it wasn't really what they wanted to hear.

"Well thanks anyway Emily." Reagan said after a few moments as she and Jake plopped down on to the sofa and sighed simultaneously, the two of there were now at a loss of what to do as this was new territory to them; Reagan the emotional cripple and Jake the teenage boy who surrounded by women but had no clue about them. Operation Save Mini Cooper could not get any worse than being in the hand of than the two of them.


	13. Chapter 13

Emily came home from work late one night, round about quarter past ten and she was almost knocked to the ground by Reagan was barrelling out of the door as she was coming in through the door and the two of them would have fell to the ground if Emily hadn't been able to stabilize them both. "Reagan, what are you doing?" Emily began as there was something wrong as Reagan was acting rather angsty and on edge more than usual.

"Oh Emily, your back that's great! I need a ride so we need to go like right now." Reagan said as she began shooing Emily back out of the door.

"Reagan it's 10:15 on a school night, you know the rules so you're not going out anywhere I'm sorry." Emily replied and she was certain that she heard a numerous amount of swear words coming out of Reagan's mouth, which was frankly quite disturbing as it was a first for Reagan as far as Emily knew as Susan had never mentioned any swearing.

"For Pete's sake Emily I know there are bloody rules but for once this isn't about me!" Reagan yelled as she stamped her foot down numerous times before shaking her fists angrily, this is why she hated people because they never understood anything that she was trying to tell them especially Emily even with the Savannah Reagan Cavanaugh book for dummies that Susan had given her. It was like talking to a brick wall, which made Reagan wonder why she even bothered with Emily at times because it seemed like Emily just didn't get anything. "Liesel is in trouble and I have to go to her NOW!"

"Liesel? What's happened to Liesel?" Emily questioned as she remembered the concerns that Reagan and Jake had come to her over their friend a few days earlier.

"Look do we have to do this now? Can we just get into your car and I explain as we go and pick up Jake before we head over to Liesel's house!" Reagan impatiently demanded as she stood there glaring at Emily to get a move on and turn around and walk out of the door.

"Rae I will drive you and Jake to Liesel's just as first as you tell me what's going on." Emily said as she walked into the apartment and put her bags down in the living, at first all she could hear was Reagan swearing yet again until she heard the teenager's footsteps follow behind shortly.

"You know what Emily, could it kill you to do something I ask without asking ten million questions? I am not one of your psychotic criminals and quite frankly I could do with a little bit of trust because if you haven't noticed it tends to work both ways. Jake and I need to go to Liesel because she needs us… what part of that is so hard to understand or merits an interrogation?" Reagan yelled furiously as she kicked the side of the couch. "Despite this being known of your business I'll tell you why I need to go to my best friend when she needs me! Her parents are getting divorced, her dad called me less then ten minutes ago to tell me that Liesel took the news badly and now she's locked herself in her bedroom and her parents are now worried. She won't talk to them so Mr. Cooper thinks that she'll respond to Jake and I, which was why I was walking out of the door before you stopped me!"

"Her parents are getting divorced…" Emily slowly said but her saying this seemed to wind Reagan up even more and did more harm then good as the teenager continued to yell.

"Yeah and although I'm not a fancy profiler even I can connect the dots, Mr. Cooper said that him and his wife have been arguing for a while and despite them trying to keep it away from Liesel and her brothers it's gotten pretty obvious to them how bad things have gotten. That's why she's been acting so out of character! Are you happy now!"

Emily held up her hands, clearly Reagan was very pissed off with her and the situation to put it lightly and who was Emily to stop her from going to Liesel when Reagan wanted to be there to support her. "Okay Reagan, we'll go now." Emily said as she picked up her bag and keys.

"About time…" Reagan sarcastically said as she walked out of the living room and back towards the front door.

Emily was going to point out that Reagan was wearing her pyjamas that consisted of plaid blue and green flannel pyjama bottoms and a long sleeved Yale t-shirt. But instead of saying anything she picked up one of Reagan's hoodies that was on the coach and followed the teenager out of the door. About five minutes after they left the apartment they picked up Jake who like Reagan, did not care about his appearance and had come out in his pyjamas. The two of them quietly sat in the car and every so often Emily would catch Reagan's eye and the teenager would glare at her, clearly the earlier incident had sent them ten steps back and had lost Emily Reagan's trust. When the threesome arrives at the Cooper's house, Liesel's dad Perry Cooper greeted them and it was obvious the strain that the breakdown on his marriage was having on him.

"Thank you for coming, I know it's late and we didn't want to disturb you but we're just so worried about Liesel, we've tried talking to her but it's not working and my wife wants us to break down the door…" Mr. Cooper began.

"Don't worry Mr. C, Reagan's figured that out already." Jake said confidently.

"Already?"

"Yeah sort of, I need to check something out in the garden… " Reagan began as made her way through the Cooper house to their back yard and when she got there, she stood and looked at the back yard before smiling to herself. "I thought so…"

"I don't understand Reagan." Mr. Cooper began.

Putting a finger on her lips Reagan motioned for them all to be quiet before pointing to the trellis that was on the side house that had vines climbing up it. "Liesel's bedroom window is open so Jake and I are going to climb up the trellis and then into her bedroom."

"Reagan are you sure that's safe." Emily softly asked.

For the moment it seemed like Reagan had put aside her issues with Emily for the sake of Liesel. "I know how to climb, a couple of guys from my dad's fire station have been taking me climbing since I was seven so I'm perfectly adept at scaling the side of a house Emily and it's only one storey so I think we'll be fine, right Jake."

Jake nodded in agreement and Reagan shooed both Emily and Mr. Cooper back into the house telling them that she'd get them in a while once they had spoken to Liesel. So with nothing else neither of them could do Mr. Cooper led Emily back into the house and into the kitchen where he made them a cup of coffee, sensing that they were in a bit of a wait. "I'm sorry for calling Reagan, I just didn't know who else to call Emily."

"Perry honestly it's fine, Rae and Jake would to be here, they were worried about Liesel already and they came to me on the weekend to see what it was they could do to help and see if they could figure out what was wrong with her." Emily assured him.

"Cassandra and I knew this had been coming for a while and decided we would wait until after the holidays before we told the kids, we knew that they'd be upset but we had no idea that Liesel would be so upset."

"Every child reacts to news that we will have a dramatic impact on their life differently."

"I'm just worried about her; I'm worried about all my children but these last few months I've noticed a change in Liesel. She's been more confident and comfortable in her own skin and we know that's down to Reagan coming into her life and then when Jake came there was more changes, Liesel was laughing and smiling, she just seemed happier enjoying herself. Before the two of them came into her life Liesel didn't have friends, she felt like an outsider so she just stayed at home and studied. I don't want her to go back into herself when she's been so happy these last few months."

"I don't think you have worry about that Perry, I completely understand where your coming from… when Reagan first moved in with me, she was emotionally closed, distrustful of anyway and a naturally lonely kid. Part of it was the grief but then some of it was just her but now I look at her and how she's being open with people about how she feels, she makes jokes and most importantly she has friends. Before Reagan moved here, the only friend she had was her social worker but within a month of meeting of Liesel, she called your daughter not only the first friend her own age that she ever had but also her best friend. And now she's just as close to Jake, the three of them are good together and they'll get through anything…"

"Tom, Dick and Harry… that's what I call them." Perry stated as there was a small hint of pride in his voice when he said the nickname that he had bestowed on the three teenagers.

Emily smiled. "So I've heard, why do you call them that?"

Perry Cooper laughed for the first time in hours. "I'd come home from work to find the three of them doing the oddest things and when I asked them about it they didn't think there was anything weird with what they were doing. They've all got an orange plant in the backyard and I've seen them talking to them, watching films upside down or with their eyes closed. Then there was this time just before Christmas that they were all dressed as Abe Lincoln with the hat and beard, when I asked is there was any particular reason why they were dressed at him they all simultaneously answered no and went back to watching a nature documentary... it just came out after that and they all loved it for some odd reason."

"So I've heard, Reagan seems particularly fond of it."

"Did Reagan tell you that the three of them have decided to save up and go on a road trip to Dollywood after they graduate?" Perry asked.

"No, she hasn't said a word… I didn't even know that they all liked Dolly Parton." Emily said as she found out all knew information that she didn't know about Reagan. There was so many things that she was just finding out about like the climbing, the Tom, Dick and Harry shenanigans and now the planned trip to Dollywood. Emily wasn't even sure this was the same girl who had moved in with her anymore.

"Well Liesel and Reagan love her and the two of them are always singing along to her songs and well Jake isn't as big as a fan as the girls. But with those three, they're a set and if two of them want to go then all three of them are going. I've think they've saved about $390 for this trip already…"

So the three of them were some kind of triquetra, as they all needed each other, judging by what Emily knew about Reagan and what Mr. Cooper had told her about Liesel. And if Liesel and Reagan needed the others then Emily knew it was safe to assume that Jake needed the two of them just as much. For the nobodies that they saw themselves as, they were rather extraordinary.


	14. Chapter 14

"Mirror, Mirror on the wall who is the fairest of them all."

Reagan looked up into the mirror to see that Emily was standing in the doorway of the bathroom with the biggest grin on her face. Things between them were still kind of funny after the whole Liesel thing and Reagan was still pretty pissed about the lack of trust that apparently had with her, which Reagan really didn't get. She behaved herself, got good grades and okay there was the sarcasm and occasional swearing problem but that didn't mean she was some kind of criminal. But then again criminals did get some trust when they got released on parole. "What do you want now Emily?"

"Has nobody ever told you that you look like snow white Reagan? Seriously you have the skin white as snow, lips red as blood and hair black as ebony." Emily pointed out as Reagan could be a dead ringer for the snow white in the Disney films if she didn't have animals following her around and was a sarcastic fifteen year old girl.

"So what does that make you? One of the seven dwarfs?" Reagan scoffed in bemusement before pausing to think about, Emily was making some sense for once and the idea was funny although Reagan would rather die than let Emily know that. "Well… Reid would be dopey for obvious reasons and also an ironic manner just like Garcia's happy and Hotch is grumpy. JJ's sleepy because I've never someone drink as much coffee as her, so she must be pretty damn sleepy if she guzzles so much cups of coffee in a day. Morgan's Sneezy because, well I'm guessing he can kick down doors just like Sneezy can obliterate a room with just one sneeze. Rossi's doc because he's seen and done everything so he should have a PhD judging by some of the things he's told me…"

"And what about me? Let me guess the wicked witch?" Emily quipped.

Reagan couldn't help but roll her eyes. "No but somebody thinks a lot about themselves, you'd be bashful but seriously Emily what do you want? I know you didn't come to make idle chit chat about a Disney film."

"Nothing I just wanted to talk and see how you were doing."

"I'm fine, just tired and hungry." Reagan replied as moved past Emily to get out of the bathroom and made her back into her bedroom to put on a green jumper before proceeding to put on her black coat with a grey hat and scarf.

"Already? You just finished eating and you slept for over eight hours last night!" Emily said although she didn't know why she was so shocked about this, eating and sleeping was two of the best things that Reagan loved to do.

"Your point is?" Reagan demanded as she started shoving books into her school bag before turning her attention to finding her phone and house keys, starting by digging into the pile of clothes sitting on her armchair.

"How's Liesel?" Emily questioned and Reagan shot up so fast, it was as if someone had shocked her and judging by how Reagan immediately tensed up, her best friend was still a bit of a sore subject.

Reagan eventually notice that her keys and phone were on her bookshelf and went to go pick them up and throw them into her bag. She really didn't want to talk about Liesel right now, considering the fact that she was broken, not as much as Reagan was or had been when her parents died but Liesel was broken now too. Reagan was clueless as to what to do with Liesel as she had been adopted and her parents were now dead, she was living with her birth mother and had no clue on her birth father, Jake's parents had never been married so the two of them didn't really know what do in a situation like this and until they figured that out she'd prefer not to talk about it, especially with Emily. "What do you care Emily?"

"Of course I care Reagan, she's one of your best friends and going through a hard time at home. I know how important Liesel is to you and I know that you're still upset about what happened last week."

"No I'm not upset I'm pissed and before you say anything here's a difference and secondly this isn't about what happened last week although it does play into it. What this is really about is the lack of trust that you seem to have in me for god knows that reason." Reagan retorted.

"I do trust you Reagan."

"See this is where last week comes in because you didn't trust me when I asked you for a ride and said that I'd explain when I'm in the car. Then there's the fact that you need to always know where I am plus I've seen you reading my bank statements to which I'm certain that not only is that illegal but it's also an invasion of privacy. And if you've taken to reading my mail, my mind dares to wonder if you've asked Garcia to dig around into what websites I go on and checked out Liesel, Jake and their families…" Reagan began as she folded her arms across her chest. "Now does that sound like the actions of someone who says that they trust you?"

"It's not what you think Rae."

"Whatever, but my mom always told me that trust works both ways and after last week and everything else, the only thing I trust you to do is keep a roof over my head and food on the table so that I don't I get shipped back off to foster care." Reagan quipped.

"Look Rae, I know I shouldn't have done it so what can I do to make it up to you?" Emily asked, she knew that bribing Reagan was the best thing to do but she had to do something, as she was certain that Reagan could keep up this whole silent act for the rest of her life if she tried.

"You know my father? Well my biological father because we both know that I had a father but anyway I want to know his name. Bio dad, I mean."

That was the last thing that Emily had expected to hear as Reagan had made it clear that she had no interest in her birth father considering that despite Horace Cavanaugh being dead he was still her father and nobody would ever replace him. "Why? Do you want to find him and get in contact?"

Reagan rolled her eyes, she really didn't know why she continued to bother with Emily when things got like this. "No I already told you I just want to know his name, seriously Emily why do you have to answer a question with another question? I just want to know the man's name without there being a reason behind it. This is part of the problem, I say I want to know his name and you think I want to get in contact with him. When I say I just want to know his name, it means exactly that and if I was back home my mom would let it go and ask no questions but you just can't help yourself, can you."

"Andrew Caffery."

"Thanks."


	15. Chapter 15

"I may have done something today, that maybe I shouldn't have and by doing so I may have dug my self into a giant hole…" Reagan slowly began as she ate lunch with Jake and Liesel at their usual table. Given everything that was going on with Liesel she really didn't want to burden her friends with another Reagan related issue but they were trying to create some normalcy for Liesel and normalcy for the three them usually unintentionally revolved around something that was related her.

"What did you now?" Jake asked in a not too surprising manner.

"I kind of asked Emily about bio-dad this morning." Reagan nonchalantly began, trying not to make a big deal out of the matter but that certainly didn't work as Liesel almost chocked on the piece if her sandwich that she was currently in the process of chewing and both Jake and Reagan both had to take turns patting her on the back until she stopped coughing.

"You did what?" Liesel finally demanded once the choking and the coughing finally stopped and she put down her sandwich for good measure.

"I asked Emily about my biological father," Reagan replied as she continued to eat a pudding cup, who was she kidding thinking she could just come out with that and expect Liesel and Jake not to make a big deal out of it? To them Reagan's whole life was some soap opera given the whole being adopted thing, then being sent back to the woman who gave her up for adoption fifteen years later after her adoptive parents died. If this wasn't Reagan's life, she would have thought it was the biggest amount of crap that she had ever heard but it wasn't as it was her sad unfortunate life.

"We heard, I just can't believe that you actually did it. I thought you said that you didn't want to know who he was and now your asking about him. What's changed?" Jake questioned.

Reagan shook her head. "Nothing, I don't want to know him… it's just that I'm still pissed off with Emily and she was hovering over my shoulder and so I asked, hoping that it would get her to leave me alone but it didn't. It just made things so much worse, she started asking me questions about it and I'm certain she now thinks that I want to get into contact with him, when I really don't."

"So the whole thing blew up in your face?" Jake summed up.

"Basically."

"Forget that! Did she actually tell you his name?" Liesel demanded, her eyes wide with interest that surprised Reagan as her own father had just moved out of the family home and now her parents were in the middle of sorting out a custody agreement.

"Oh yeah… it's Andrew Caffery." Reagan slowly said, the name sounded so foreign to her and it was kind of hard to wrap around her head around the idea that this man or rather that name belonged to the man who was partially responsible for her existence.

"Is that it?" Liesel questioned.

"Um yeah, that's all I asked…" Reagan slowly replied.

"So you don't know anything else about him at all?"

"Um well I know he went to Yale and that he was in the same class as Emily as that's where they met and conceived me. Don't quote me on this but I'm assuming that I get my eye colour form him as Emily has brown eyes and apart from that I don't know anything else and I don't really intend to find out because like I've said already I had a dad, one who I was very much proud to call my father."

"We get that Reagan but don't you want to know anything else about him? Like what he looks like, whether he's married or and this is a big one. Whether or not he has more kids?" Jake began and after he had finished his eyes become wide at the though of it. "Could you imagine that? Smaller half versions of Reagan…"

"That is a very scary thought." Liesel added. "No offense Reagan."

"For what? You're right, that is a very scary thought. People like Emily Prentiss and Andrew Caffery should not have kids together if the offspring remotely resemble anything like I do. If I think Emily is bad and an occasionally annoying and frequent pain in my ass that what about this Andrew guy? I'm the spitting image of one of my biological parents; I'm guessing my dazzling personality may come from the other parent because personality wise I'm nothing like my adoptive parents except for the whole food thing… But anyway whilst I am grateful that the two of them getting together result in my conception and eventual birth, I'm not their child."

"But you are." Liesel added.

"Not in the eyes of the law I'm not, the day I was officially adopted they relinquished all legal and parental rights to Horace and Amanda Cavanaugh. I knew nothing about any of this, you guys do remember me telling you that my parents died before they got round to telling me that I was adopted?""

"You said that you figured it out." Jake pointed out.

"Well that's because I'm amazing and Susie Q confirmed it all for me after the accident."

"What about your birth certificate."

Reagan shrugged her shoulders. "I don't know, I've never seen it there was never any need for me to see it but I assume that Emily or Susie has it or copies of it. I don't know about any of it really, it was a private adoption and seeing how Emily knew nothing about me before I came back into her life I'm pretty sure that it was a closed adoption."

"One question, are you not all curious about where you came from and this Andrew guy?" Liesel questioned.

-"I don't know, after my parents died I was pretty pissed off about the whole adoption thing to put it lightly but when I thought about it. I realized that I liked who I was for the most part, I grew up in safe neighbourhood, went to good schools and most importantly I had parents who loved me. Maybe someday I'll get curious about Andrew and his life and whether he has other kids but for now I'm content with just being Savannah Cavanaugh…"


	16. Chapter 16

"_So Emily…"_

"_I have a daughter." Emily blurted in the hopes of deterring the ever president Mick Rawson, she had only met the man a few hours ago but he was shamelessly flirting with her and amusing as it was. It had to stop as Emily had more important things to be dealing with then a very smug Brit like finding the UnSub and getting back home to Reagan. _

"_Really?" Mick questioned and Emily could hear the surprise in his voice "And does this bundle of joy happen to have a name?"_

_Emily found herself to be entertaining Mick as it passed the time as she was certain that he'd back off once he found out how old her 'daughter' actually was. "Savannah but she prefers to be called Reagan or Rae."_

"_Well I don't see why, Savannah is a beautiful name despite the fact it means treeless plain." Mick joked._

"_Beautiful name especially for a surly teenager." Emily found herself replying as she thought of Reagan who certainly wasn't plain by any standards._

"_Teenager?" Mick slowly asked after a brief moment of pause._

_Got ya! Emily thought to herself as the shock and disbelief sounded very clear in his voice. "Yep and she turns sixteen next month."_

"_Hmm, you look good for a woman who has a fifteen year old daughter I can honestly say I never would have guessed looking at you." Mick quipped much to Emily amused displeasure. "So tell me all about Savannah or should I say Reagan? What does she look like?"_

"_Snow White."_

_Mick's laughter over the comms was boisterous and Emily couldn't help but smile. "Your not just saying that because you're her mother, are you? I know every parent says that their child is beautiful but you can be honest with me, we are after all looking for a serial killer together so I believe that it allows to truthful and share things with each other…"_

_Emily had no idea where Mick came up with all this nonsense and there was no way that any woman in her right mind would fall for it. But then again there was the British accent. "She is beautiful and she does look like Snow White."_

"_So I'm assuming she takes after you then Emily?" _

"Prentiss are okay? You've seemed rather distant since we left San Francisco." Hotch said as he slid into the seat opposite to Emily's on the jet. The rest of the team were sleeping and it was just the two of them who were still up not including the pilots.

"Yeah I'm fine Hotch, I'm just been thinking that's all." Emily began as she brushed the conversation she had with Mick about Reagan out of her head. It had been ridiculous but oddly useful as she had been thinking about doing something for a while and maybe getting Hotch's opinion on it may help considering he was in a similar situation to her in terms of being a single parents. "I've been debating the idea of whether or not I should talk to Reagan about the possibility of adopting her, I know it sounds silly considering that I am technically her birth mother but I gave up my parental rights when I sighed the adoption papers…"

"No it doesn't sound silly at all." Hotch replied.

"I know I did the right thing giving her up for adoption, I wasn't ready to be a parent and as selfish as this was I had my career to think about but I wanted to make sure that she went to a good family. To parents who would love her as much as I did and I found them; the Cavanaugh's were everything that I was looking for."

"You did what you thought was right Emily, no one can ever make you feel that as you did what you thought was best for your child."

Emily took a deep breath. "I don't regret what I did, I knew that Reagan would grow up happy and loved but I thought of her everyday wondering what she was doing, how she was doing and what she looked like. Then eight months ago I got the news that changed everything and then a few weeks later she was living with me. I sometimes look at Reagan and I can't believe that she's the same girl that I gave for adoption and with her birthday next month it all seems surreal. Her sixteenth birthday will be the first birthday that we'll ever spend together…"

"Is that what prompted you to think about adopting Reagan? Her upcoming birthday." Hotch questioned,

"No I've been thinking about this for a while because currently I'm only technically her foster parent and any big decisions to do with Reagan's life I have to discuss with her social workers and even after the seven months she's been with me and we still get the occasional checks by social services. I think by making this permanent and official will give her something stable again because this last year had been a real upheaval." Emily explained.

"Have you spoken to Reagan about this?"

"Not yet, the whole adoption this s a grey matter between us because she's now pretty much dealt with it but about a month ago she asked me about her biological father, she just wanted to know his name and that was it. Went to school and hasn't brought it up since. So I'm guessing it's been on her mind but what I'm really worried about is how she's going to react to the offer. I gave her up for adoption in the first place and now I want to adopt her, so abandonment issues may come up and I don't want her to think I'm doing this to give her up again. Then there's the natural issue of her thinking that I'm trying to replace her parents. Emily said with a small sigh, she knew that Reagan would never see her as her mother because that role had been filled but more often that not Emily saw Reagan as being her daughter, she even referred to Reagan as her daughter in front of other people.

"What do you think Reagan will think off the offer?" Hotch ventured.

Emily had no idea as her and Reagan were in good place at the moment and everything had gone back to normal over the whole Liesel incident but Emily never knew how long things were going to last with Reagan as she was a real live wire. "She'll be surprised and shocked I know that but other than that I have no clue, Reagan is a bundle of surprises and every time I think I've figured her out she does something that I least suspect. The only thing I do know is that when I do broach the subject with her she'll be eating pudding cups and talking to Jake and Liesel about it. Other than that? I have no idea how she'll react let alone whether or not she'll agree to it…"


	17. Chapter 17

"Hey, I'm heading out to Jake's I probably won't be back for dinner but feel free to leave me some leftovers. I'll probably be hungry when I get back…" Reagan called out as she slipped on her trainers and picked up her bag and slung it over her shoulders before proceeding to walk out of her bedroom and headed into the living room to where Emily was sitting. But what piped Reagan's attention was that there was an unopened pudding cup sitting on the coffee table along with a spoon and Reagan knew for a fact that Emily didn't eat pudding cups. "Emily…"

"Do you have a second so we can talk about something or do you have to rush off?" Emily began.

"I have time. I'm in no particular rush so what's up? Has something happened?" Reagan replied as she slid her bag off and dropped it onto the floor before making her way over to the couch and opening the pudding cup. Whatever it was, it must be something big that Emily thought she needed a pudding cup in order to keep her happy. Reagan wasn't sure whether or not this was going to bode well at all.

"I want to talk to you about something that I've been thinking about on and off for the last couple of months but before I tell you what it is. I want you to know that there is no pressure on you at all and whatever you decide it won't change anything between us." Emily said. "These last few months have been great and occasionally rocky but I've loved having you here and I care about you a lot Reagan–"

"Emily are you sending me back to foster case?" Reagan demanded as she narrowed her eyes as she took a spoonful of her chocolate pudding because the way Emily was talking it was like she was saying goodbye. It was like the whole I love you but I never want to see you again or the famous it's not you, it's me. Reagan was certain that she needed the whole damn set of pudding cups to get through this conversation.

"No of course not I love having you here Reagan, why on earth would I send you back to foster care? That's not what I wanted to talk about. I wanted us to talk about the possibility of me adopting you." Emily announced.

Okay. That wasn't what Reagan was expecting, in fact it was without a doubt the last thing she would have ever thought of and quite frankly didn't exactly understand but then again it was quite shocking news. "What? You want to adopt me… Emily you're already my biological mother." Reagan spluttered.

"I know."

Reagan took another spoonful of her pudding cup, there was no way that one pudding cup would be enough for this whole thing. "Is this because I asked about Andrew? I don't u-understand any of this…"

"I want to make things more stable for you. I know this last year hasn't been the most stable for you given everything that's happened and the amount of times you've had to pick up your life since the accident. I don't want you to ever worry about having to leave again, I want to care of you and give you legal security and make what we have here more permanent." Emily explained as Reagan got up from the couch and started pacing up and down the room.

"I don't know what to think about any of this, Emily you want to adopt me after you gave me up for adoption." Reagan said as her voice went up a few octaves, a sure sign that she was distressed other than the pacing. Nervous habits her mother used to tell her. "Do you know how crazy what your suggesting sounds? You gave me up and now you want me back? I'm not the profiler here Emily but even that doesn't sound right to me… you can't pretend that it never happened. It's been almost sixteen years..."

"I'm not trying to pretend that nothing happened, I wasn't ready to be a mother and so I gave you up for adoption and I don't regret what I did. Because I made sure that you went to a good family where you would be loved and cared for. I'm not trying to replace your parent Rae, I would never try to do that because I know how much you loved them and I know that they were your mom and dad. They can never be replaced and I know that, I just want to take care of you and be Emily. Like I have been for these last few months… Susan thinks–" Emily said in a soothing tone in an attempt to calm Reagan down.

"Susan? You've spoken to Susie Q about this? Who else have you spoken to about " Reagan said in utter disbelief as started biting the nail of her thumb in an a highly agitated manner and Emily got up and went to the kitchen to return moments later with a chocolate bar which she handed to Reagan who immediately started eating it.

"I mentioned it to Hotch because I needed to speak to someone about this who could relate somewhat to this and I spoke to Susan because like me she cares about you and wants what's best for you." Emily replied.

"And what did Susie Q have to say on the matter?" Reagan questioned in a rather irritated manner.

"She thought it was a good idea and Susan said that she would support it but we both agreed that this was your decision. That is what I want to make clear you; that this is your decision and I don't want to make you feel as if you have to agree to it in order for you to stay here. Whether or not you agree to the adoption will not affect you living here with me."

"I need to go, I'll be back later…" Reagan needed to get out of here, her mind could not process any of this whole information. She had to get out of this apartment and clear her head, eat a few things that were fat, greasy and completely unhealthy. Ice-cream and junk food would be good too.


	18. Chapter 18

Walking out of school Reagan had barely walked a few yards when both her elbows were grabbed by both Liesel and Jake who began dragging her off in a direction unknown. "Um… were the hell are we going?" she demanded but the two of them ignored and continued dragging her along to god knows where for the next ten minutes before the three of them eventually arrived at a diner. When they got inside Jake and Liesel led Reagan to the both at the furthest end of the dinner.

"We need to talk Rae but it's probably best if you eat so go ahead and order something." Liesel said pointing her hand in the direction of the menu and never one to be told about eating, Reagan picked it up and ending up ordering a cheeseburger and fries, a chocolate milkshake with apple pie and ice cream for dessert.

"This isn't about my birthday, is it?" Reagan asked.

"No."

If it wasn't about her birthday then it was something with bad news, people always fed her when they were going to give her bad news about something. When her parents died, her dad's fellow fire-fighters fed her pizza and chocolate cake after they had given her the news about the accident. "Whose died?" Reagan questioned.

Jake shook his head. "Nobody's dead as far as we know."

"Then what on earth is this all about?" Reagan asked as the waitress came over with her order and Reagan immediately began digging in, if no one was dead why did she have to get food? But food was food and Reagan loved eating so she wasn't going to dwell on it too much.

"Something's been going on with you and the closer we get to your birthday the more antsy you seem to get, so what's wrong?" Liesel began.

"Nothing's wrong with me, I've just been pensive the least couple of weeks." Reagan said with a half lie as she took a bite of her burger so she may have been a little bit antsy these last few weeks but it was only because she had a lot on her mind at the moment so really it wasn't even a half lie. But she knew that Jake and Liesel wouldn't believe her as the two them could read her like book, which unnerved her very much considering they had only known each other for like eight months.

"Your not pensive Rae, your either in that dark and twisted creepy place, miserable or semi happy not pensive so spill, what's going on with you? And don't even try and tell us it's because of your birthday because we know that's not true." Jake stated and he along with Liesel gave Reagan a look that said they'd sit here for as long as it took until she answered them with the truth.

"Fine. The reason why I've been freaking out so much lately is because Emily asked if she could adopt me." Reagan blurted out before proceeding to stuff her mouth with fries, she needed something in her mouth to chew on as this was the first time she had actually said it out loud since she had walked out of the apartment to go over to Jake's house and she was still a bit high strung over the matter.

"–What?" Liesel and Jake simultaneously demanded in a rather predictable manner and moments later they were both ordering food of the menu. This was big news and whenever they got big news the three of them tended to eat such as after Reagan and Jake had successfully climbed in to Liesel's room after her parents told her they were getting divorced. Once the two of them had convinced Liesel to leave their room Mr. Cooper cooked them all grilled cheese. Eating in stressful situations was their things. So that sat in silence once more until the waitress bought over Jake and Liesel's orders.

"Can she even do considering the fact that she gave you up for adoption almost sixteen years ago to the day?" Jake asked as he started on his lasagne and Liesel went for her chilli fries and chicken burger.

"According to Susie Q it is, when Emily gave me signed those adoption papers she signed away her parental rights. So she can legally adopt me despite the oddity of the situation that we're already in and she'll be recognized as my legal parent and that means no more social workers or visits." Reagan wearily replied as she took a sip of her milkshake.

"How did you react? What do you tell her?" Liesel question with full interest as there was nothing more fascinating than the dysfunctional life that was Savannah Reagan Cavanaugh, even Reagan could see what was so compelling about it despite the fact that she wished it was somebody else's life and not her own.

"This is me were talking about, how'd you think I reacted? I left the apartment and told her I'd have to think about and that was three weeks and five pounds, when we were having that three stooges marathon at Jake's place." Reagan admitted me and she could seen the light bulbs going off in her friends brains, she had arrived at Jake's place armed with food of all assortment including pudding cups and a cheeseburger,

"And you still haven't given her an answer yet have you?" Jake noted. "Why not?"

"I'm over the adoption thing now, I know why Emily gave me up and I'm glad she did because I had great parents and despite Emily telling me that she's not trying to replace them I feel like by doing this it'll just be painting over the fifteen years that I had with my parents, like it never happened. It's complicated, she says she'd doing this because she wants to give me stability and make things permanent between us and I really don't know what to think about any of this." Reagan admitted.

"She is your mother–" Jake began

Reagan immediately rolled her eyes, Jake loved pointing that out to her despite Regan telling him numerous times already that Emily was not her mother; she had a mother and that was not Emily. Her mother was called Amanda Cavanaugh. "–Jake will you stop with that already, Emily is not and will not ever be my mom."

"Savannah just let me finish; she is your mother and it is okay for you to love her, it doesn't mean that you didn't love your mom." Jake said and Reagan looked at Jake for a moment before looking at her food. Damn his psychiatrist of a father! It was rather annoying how easily Jake got into her head not to mention the fact that he was right most of the time.

"What are you talking about Jake?" Reagan asked and her voice was very shaky and the emotion was clear in her voice.

"Emily loves you Rae, you know that as do the rest of us. You care for her and the two of you seem happy in your weird little set up but I think this adoption thing has made you realize how much you care for Emily and I think you want to do it. However I think you're hesitant about this because you're scared that if you let Emily adopt you then you'll love her like you did your mom. And that scares you because you had a mom who you loved very much and no one will ever replace her. But it's ok for you to love Emily. It's okay for you to love them both Rae. You don't have to be scared of loving both your mothers.""


	19. Chapter 19

_Hey everyone! just a quick note to say that i've had to change certain things like Reagan's age because of the fact that Paget Brewster is leaving criminal minds for good, so Reagan is fifteen instead of fourteen and will soon be turning sixteen in the next chapter. i did this to make Emily's departure to coincide with Reagan leaving for college and all. Funny thing is the birthdate for Reagan in the first chapter matches up perfectly with her being sixteen now... an error on my part that's worked out rather well. Anyway in other news bio dad Andrew will be making an appearance soon i hope, i was going to leave it until the story matched up to season 7 but now i don't want to wait. I have an idea about bringing him in earlier which coincides with what happens in season 6 - and trust me it's not going to be pretty given what we know what happens and Reagan's temper and i now have an idea about how Andrew fits into that. I'm just working out whether or not Andrew will have kids because Reagan is the walking, talking sarcastic personification on an only child and i like that about her but most of this story has been and will be about her changing in a more mentally and emotionally way - not like she develops a new personality but she just gets a bit softer round the edges. So that's a work in progress as is Andrew's back story but i think i have the gist of it in my head somewhere. But he will be making an appearance soon, definitely not the next chapter but the next four after that, you never know?_

* * *

><p>Sixteen. That's how old Savannah Reagan Cavanaugh was going to be in a few short hours. Instead of being back home in Connecticut like she imagined she would be when she turned sixteen, she was now in Washington D.C. on the eve of her birthday sitting in her bedroom with her two best friends. That sentence alone was enough to tell Reagan how much things had changed; she had never spent a birthday not in Connecticut where she would usually spend it at her dad's firehouse with her dad's friends. Then there was the fact that she had friends of her own now. "Thanks for agreeing to stay over, I just can't be alone with Emily right now. I'm losing my damn mind and just being in the same room as her at the moment is just irritating me to no ends…"<p>

"I thought that everything was remotely okay with the two of you? Emily said she'd give you all the time you needed to think about this adoption thing and you were fine with that." Jake questioned as he watched the air mattress keep inflating itself, Reagan and Liesel were going to share Reagan's double bed whilst he had the air mattress, which was fine by him.

"It was until the day before yesterday when it hit me. This time fifteen years and however many days ago Emily was pregnant with me and about to give birth to a baby that she never wanted. Now I'm just irritated by this…" Reagan stated with a shake of her head. "It's not like she couldn't keep me; I mean c'mon her mother is the bloody ambassador to some country and her parents are loaded. They've already offered to pay for college tuition and what not, she had everything she could need to support me and yet she still didn't want me."

"Rae, she may not have been ready to have been mother, yeah she may have had the means but maybe she just wasn't ready to be a mom to you." Liesel said.

"That's why there's a thing as birth control Liesel, to stop unwanted pregnancies such as myself we can't just put the blame on bio dad, it may have been his sperm that set the whole pregnancy in motion but Emily had a part in this too. She didn't want kids, so she taken the precautions." Reagan retorted.

Liesel and Jake couldn't help but laugh, it seemed like Reagan had an answer for everything. "You do realize that if that had happened, then you would have never been born and the three of us wouldn't be sitting here, right now?"

Now it was Reagan's point to laugh. "Okay point taken and yeah I'm grateful for what Emily did because I would have never had… the amazing parents I had for fifteen years and I never would have met you guys if I had grown up Savannah Prentiss or Caffery or whatever they would have named me. But it's just the fact that Emily didn't want me…"

"Rae…" Jake began.

"It took me until I was ten to figure out I was adopted and it was only because I didn't look anything like my parents in the slightest that I realized and it wasn't until I turned thirteen that I really started to wonder about my bio parents. When Susie Q told me I was adopted I already knew but inside my head was saying 'that explains everything'. The first time I met Emily it was in the airport because up until then I had refused to meet her or be in the same room as her, the moment I saw her I just knew who she was. Because I look at Emily and I see myself, then I think that I'm a constant reminder of what she didn't want, which is why I just can't be here alone with her on the day she gave me up. There is this emptiness inside of me when it comes to Emily and it just confuses me…"

"You have every right to be confused. No one is telling you how you should be feeling and given everything that you have gone through this past year, it's okay not to be sure about any of this, especially this adoption thing. It's a big decision."

"I can't pretend like of this never happened, I can't act like she never wanted me or that my parents never existed because it's all true. I was raised by two different people because my biological mother didn't want her and because the greater good or plan decided to screw up my life worse that it already was, I back living with the woman who didn't want me. Who now wants me, it's rather ironic when you think about it…" Reagan stated with a sigh, as much as she hated Jake poking around in her head it sure helped. Dr. Fisher definitely had a second generation shrink on his hands.

"Nothing about your life is normal Savannah and I honestly have no idea how you deal with it, I've barely been dealing with my parents divorce and that pales in comparison with everything you've gone through this last year. You're amazing, do you that? The sheer amount of strength and courage you have is admirable." Liesel told her.

"You know I've been thinking these lat few days about this whole adoption and being adopted again thing and how it's messing me up more than usual. I have all these abandonment and being adoption issues, which is just being made worse by the fact that tomorrow it's not only my sixteenth birthday but the first birthday I spend without my parents, the first I spend with my biological mother and sixteen years if I was adopted." Reagan began before taking a deep breath. "All of that is a bundle of issues and problems which add to my never ending problems and whilst Jake is always happy to play shrink to our little group I don't want to be like these for the rest of my life. I want to get over the whole adoption thing and to do that I have to go to the beginning and find out the truth about it all. I do that and I can move on with my life, out of the four main people involved in this, two of them are dead, I live with another one involved and then there is the last person involved in this…"

"Oh my god…" Liesel began as she shared a look with Jake who seemed just as stunned as her.

"You're not suggesting–" Jake continued.

"That we find Andrew Caffery? Yeah I think I am…"


	20. Chapter 20

Emily stood in the park near her apartment and watched the festivities take place, for Reagan's birthday the two of them along with Liesel, Jake, the team plus Kevin, Jack, Henry and Will were having a picnic party of sorts for Reagan's birthday. Emily turned her attention to where Liesel and Reagan were playing with Jack and Henry whilst the rest of the adults were finishing tidying up whilst Jake was taking photos. Reagan had been acting very much like herself to Emily's surprise as she was expecting her to withdrawal into herself but then again her parents giving their granddaughter a lexus suv for her birthday may have something to do with it. But then there was something else too, Reagan had only made two rules for the entire day, the first was that she was only to be addressed, as Savannah and the second was that no one was to ask how she was.

"Give her time."

Emily turned her head to see Jake standing beside her wearing a small smile on his face as his camera sat around his neck, he had been taking pictures all day to commemorate the day. "Excuse me?"

"Rae told us about the adoption thing, we know she hasn't said anything to you about it as she's still trying to figure it all out. So your probably worried about her but don't be, Liesel and I are taking care of it but today is a big and very stressful day considering everything that has happened and what it all means to Rae. This wasn't exactly how she imagined her sixteenth birthday and her head has been all over the place with her birthday and with the anniversary of her parents death coming up, she's going to withdraw into herself more." Jake explained.

"Jake is there something your not telling me?" Emily questioned as there seemed to be something that Jake knew that she was somehow missing and failing to see as to what it could be. But that wasn't too much of a surprise, Reagan was not one for confiding things to others as she kept most things in her head. But if she were to confide in somebody then it would be Jake and Liesel.

"No. All I'm saying is to give her time, she'll come to you when she's ready to… even though she can't say, Rae really appreciates her giving time to process this all."

"I know you'd never betray her confidence Jake but do you think Reagan will agree to the adoption or will she say no?" Emily found herself to be asking, although Jake was only sixteen years old she had on authority from Reagan that Jake liked nothing better than messing around with people's heads, analyzing their behaviours and handing out advice – something which he had apparently picked up from his father. Reagan had once joked that he'd made a great psychiatrist someday given that he didn't change a thing and his advice was actually good on occasion.

"There's a lot of factors and variables to consider as this is the furthest from any normal situation and given everything that Rae's gone through these last twelve months, with her parents deaths, being reunited with you, constant upheavals of foster care and moving from Connecticut to D.C." Jake admitted after a brief minute. "I don't want to use the term control freak but we all know that Rae doesn't like change in the slightest and this for her is the worst imaginable thing ever. Sort of like putting a person with OCD in a messy room, they can't cope. When it comes to what Reagan's decision may be I honestly couldn't tell you Emily, Rae may think one thing, but say another and then go on to do something completely different. If you haven't noticed Savannah Cavanaugh is no normal girl and your guess is as good as mine as to what goes on in that head of her's."

"So you don't know?" Emily concluded.

"No idea." Jake said with a grin as he ruffled the back of brown hair.

Emily watched Reagan pick up Jack and spin him around before placing the small boy back on the ground, it continued to amaze her that the beautiful young woman in front of her was the same baby girl that she gave birth to sixteen years ago to the day. Weighing in at 7lb 2oz after nine months and one long extra week of being carried around in a comfy womb and then eleven hours of labour. Emily could remember hear cry for the first time, the sharp piercing cry that melted her heart. And then having her baby girl placed into her arms. She could recall everything about her baby such as the thick and full head of dark hair, the button nose and pink lops. Most importantly the strong grip she had when Emily gave her a finger to hold. "Sixteen years has gone by so quickly."

"Do you ever wonder what things would be like– what Rae would be like if you raised her instead of giving her up for adoption?" Jake questioned.

"All the time, as corny as that sounds she was never far from my mind especially on birthdays and holidays. I wonder how tall she was getting, what she liked to do and whether she was happy and loved." Emily admitted glancing at the teenage boy beside before turning her attention back to Rae, her Reagan. The daughter who was hers but not really hers. "I wonder whether we'd be here in this moment, whether she'd have brothers or sisters. Most importantly I wonder whether she'd still be the Savannah Reagan Cavanaugh that we all know and love, the girl who loves to wear plaid shirts, eat pudding cups and believes that sarcasm is a way of life. And I know in my heart that she wouldn't be the same girl that's here in front of us today and with that knowledge I'm glad that I did what I did because I can't imagine loving a different girl to the one standing in front of us."

"You did right by her." Jake told her and Emily smiled at the sixteen year old boy who clearly so wise beyond his young years.

"I know."


	21. Chapter 21

Nine days. That's how long it took Reagan to track down Andrew Caffery and it wasn't even that hard, the only reason why it took so long was because of school getting in the way and Reagan had to make sure Emily didn't suspect a thing. But anyway it didn't take that long considering that they had Andrew's name and they knew he was a graduate of Yale's class of 1993 all thanks to Google and Emily's college year book. Jake and Liesel were heavily involved in the search and the three of them had a good laugh going through the yearbook until they found him; Andrew Emerson Caffrey. It was odd looking at him and Reagan wasn't sure what to make of him, he looked normal she guessed with his brown hair and the hazel eyes, which she already knew that she got her hazel eyes from him. Google made the rest of it easier, turns out Andrew had attended Harvard Law school after his time in Yale and gone on to become some big cooperate lawyer at a fancy law firm and he was based here.

Once they had established that, it was stalking time. Well not stalking in a literal sense but they checked out the building that his office was located and in afternoon once school was finished. The three of them watched Andrew coming and going a couple of times, dressed in very expensive looking power suit. Today it was a Friday afternoon and Reagan, Jake and Liesel were on stalking duty.

"Are we going to do this forever?" Jake questioned asked as he sat with Liesel and Reagan on a bench.

"Do you have somewhere else to be right now Jacob?" Reagan asked.

"No Savannah, I just want to know if we should just set up some little camp if we're going to keep this little thing of ours going and we maybe we should start wearing disguises because someone is bound to notice three teenagers who keep hanging around a building in which we have no business in being anywhere near." Jake retorted.

"He has a point." Liesel pointed out.

"True… Okay, we'll do glasses, wigs and hats, also the tourist disguise is always good as we can pretend we don't speak english if someone asks. And those old school spy disguises with the hats, trench coats and fake moustaches. If we're going to do disguises then we should at least have some fun whilst we're at it…" Reagan said nodding in agreement, last thing any of them wanted to do was get arrested.

"Rae… Jake has a point, are we just going to sit out here and watch the building forever?" Liesel asked.

"I can't exactly go up to the man and say hi I'm the love child you conceived in college and then abandoned. And I'm here to talk to you about the fact that your ex girlfriend who is my birth mother took me in after my life fell apart and wants to adopt me and I need to talk to you because of all the abandonment issues I have because of my adoption." Reagan replied with a shake of her head. "I know that this long and tedious but I don't know what to do, knowing about him and looking for him is one thing but approaching him is another. I don't think I'm ready for that. I know this was all my idea but you know, it's scary…"

"No pressure then, we'll do this everyday until you feel ready Rae." Jake assured her and Liesel nodded in agreement and Reagan couldn't help but smile. Her friends were pretty damn great and she was sure as hell going to have to make it up them after, she'd start by putting in some extra money for their graduation trip not to mention make dinner for them and host a movie marathon weekend just to be able to start making up everything the two of them had done for these last few months.

"Speaking of pressure I can't do this on an empty stomach so I'm going to go get a coffee and a doughnut from that coffee vendor do you guys want anything?" Reagan questioned and her friends shook their heads. So picking up her bag Reagan made her way over to the coffee stand and less than two minutes later as she was paying for her coffee and doughnut Reagan got a text on her phone from Liesel.

_Rae! Doon't freak out! oN WAY behind youu!_

Picking up her coffee Reagan turned around to look in the direction of where she had been camped out with Liesel and Jake to see what on earth they were talking about but as she did, Reagan didn't look where she was going and she bumped into someone and ended up spilling her coffee on to herself. "FUUUDGE!" Reagan hissed as the coffee scolded the bottom of her vest, god that was hot and Rae had to bite her hip to stop herself from crying out in pain.

"Kid you okay?" A male voice asked and Reagan looked up briefly from her shirt and when she did, Liesel's text suddenly made so much sense. Standing in front of her was Andrew Caffrey and he was looking at her with a concerned look on his face.

"Y-You…." Reagan began in a panicked tone of voice. "Oh, shit…"

"Hey… do I know you?" Andrew asked.

"N-No, I'm no one just some dumb kid…" Reagan wearily said as she took a couple of steps back because Andrew was looking at her in a weirdly funny way like he knew who she was which was impossible. Because he had never seen her before but she did look like someone he knew. Or rather once knew; Emily. Reagan silently cursed Emily and genetics in general because if she didn't look so much like Emily then this wouldn't be happening right now and Rae wouldn't be moments away from pissing herself because she was scared shitless. Shaking her head Reagan hurried past Andrew and started making her way back towards Liesel and Jake, they needed to get out of here before things got so much worse.

"Savannah?"

Upon hearing her first name Reagan instinctively froze on the spot and swore when she realized what she had just done. This had all just gone Pete Tong and by stopping she had just put her foot in it and now things were just going to get worse.


	22. Chapter 22

"Savannah?"

After a moment of standing on the spot like an idiot Reagan pulled herself together and started walking away, she needed to get far far away from here and go sit down and eat something greasy so she could process this information. He knew her name, Andrew wasn't supposed to know her name but yet he did. Reagan would try and figure that out later but first she needed to get back to Liesel and Jake so they all run back to where she had parked her car.

"Savannah!"

Reagan kept walking as Andrew kept calling her name until she felt herself being yanked back by the strap of her bag and she slowly turned around to see Andrew standing there looking like she was some weird kind of freak. "Look… I don't know what your talking about, so just leave me the hell alone mister or I'll scream as loud as I can." Reagan said pulling herself together, she could deal with this if she just kept her cool all she had to do was convince Andrew that he was mistaking her for the wrong person.

"No I don't think I am… I think your exactly who I think you are and that your name is Savannah Cavanaugh and that you recently turned sixteen." Andrew stated and to say Reagan was shocked was an understatement and apparently whatever reaction she had on her face told him everything that he needed to know. "I'm right aren't I?"

"No." Reagan said with a shake of her head.

"Yes I am."

"H-How do you know that… How do you know my name?" Reagan demanded after a few minutes pause, there was no way he was going to believe that she wasn't Savannah and Reagan decided to stop pretending she wasn't. Somehow he knew who she was and she needed to know how he knew that, as far as she knew he took off the moment Emily told him she was pregnant yet Andrew somehow knew her name. None of this made sense.

"So you are Savannah Cavanaugh?" Andrew quipped.

"No I'm the Dalai freaking Lama!" Reagan sarcastically retorted just as Liesel and Jake come running over to her and honestly not a moment too soon.

"Hey! Get your grubby mitts off her!" Liesel demanded as she shook Andrew's hold over Reagan's bag and pulled Reagan safely back toward her and Jake. "Are you okay Reagan? He hasn't hurt you or anything?"

"I'm fine."

"Reagan? Your name is Savannah?" Andrew questioned in confusion.

"I don't go by Savannah anymore, I go by my middle name instead." Reagan admitted before taking a deep breath, this was so not how she imagined this reunion of some sorts going about. But she had questions and Andrew had the answers to them. "But you never answered my questioned, how do you know who I am? And my name?"

"Maybe we should go to my office and I'll explain everything, don't worry there are loads of people in the office…" Andrew offered.

Reagan really wasn't sure about this, but it wasn't like Andrew was going to let up anytime soon and the sooner she got this over with then the quicker she could leave and never pretend like this had happened but she would take Jake and Liesel for back up as Reagan knew for a fact that Jake had a pretty decent left hook and Liesel carried mace with her at all times. "They come with me."

"Sure thing." Andrew replied and five minutes later the foursome were in Andrew's fancy office at the law firm that he worked, he had a huge office with a glass wall and big windows and it was all mighty impressive to someone who cared about such things like that but Reagan couldn't give a flying toss about his office. "So Savannah who are your friends?"

"Liesel and Jake." Reagan bluntly put.

"It's nice to meet you both," Andrew said.

"She doesn't like being called Savannah unless it's by us so I'd stop calling her that, unless you want something in here to be broken. Stick to Reagan." Jake advised as he idly looked around the office.

Andrew nodded his head slowly. "Your almost a grown up Reagan, it's hard to believe that your sixteen years old already and that you're here in D.C. did you come all the way here from Connecticut? Do

"I live here." Reagan replied.

"Really? I could have swore that your adoptive parents lived in Connecticut." Andrew said and once the words had come out of his mouth, Reagan just froze on the spot and looked at the floor as to avoid Andrew's gaze on her. "What did I say? Do your parents not know that you're here?"

"Rae did live in Connecticut until her parents died ten months ago, they never told her that she was adopted but she knew for a few years before they passed." Liesel softly explained.

"I'm sorry to hear that."

Reagan just rolled her eyes, this was taking forever. "Look I don't want your sympathy or anything and I'm going to tell you this now I'm not here because I want to get to know you. This may sound harsh but I had a father who I loved very much and I'm only here because I need to know the details about my adoption that aren't in my file and I'd rather not go to Emily about it."

"Emily… You know who she is?" Andrew questioned.

"Of course I do, I live with her." Reagan scoffed.

"–Wait one second… you live with Emily? Your birth mother?"

"She's also known as the woman who you were dating until you knocked her up and abandoned her when she was pregnant. But yes I do live with Emily and have been for about eight months now." Reagan said and she watched as Andrew took a deep breath and tried to process this information.

"I don't understand… You were adopted and now you're back with Emily." Andrew slowly said.

"My parents died, I was put in foster care for a couple of months until my social worker tracked down Emily and asked if she'd be willing to take me considering teenagers don't exactly get adopted the first time let alone twice. Emily said yes and a long story short Emily wants to adopt me but I need to know about my first adoption so please keep up as I don't like explaining this story a lot." Reagan replied

"What do you want to know?" Andrew asked.

"Why weren't you there for Emily when she was pregnant? From what's in my file you weren't there and your name certainly wasn't on my original birth certificate and please don't soften it for me, I know that I was unplanned and not wanted hence the adoption."

"Look I don't know what that file says but yeah I wasn't there when Emily was pregnant and I am ashamed of leaving her alone but I was young, scared and I was worried about my future as I was about to go Harvard. I was selfish, only thinking of myself and a coward and I have never been more ashamed of myself for letting Emily go through that alone. I wish I would have been there to support her… But I was there, the day you were born… I got a call from someone telling Emily was at the hospital and in labour. I didn't get there in time but I saw you and Emily, with your parents then I saw you once in the nursery. I could tell straight away which one was you because of your dark hair and your hazel eyes." Andrew explained.

"Why didn't you do anything?" Reagan asked.

"I ran into the Emily's mother who encouraged me to leave but I did anymore harm but before I did, I needed to find out your name so I bribed a nurse to tell me and she did. Said your name was Savannah Cavanaugh and she assured me that you were going to a good home."

"But…" Liesel pressed. "There's something you're not saying Mr. Caffrey."

"I looked for you a couple of years ago, I hired a private investigator to track you down when your were eight because I needed to know how you were doing and he found you and he gave me this." Andrew said as he pulled out his wallet from inside his suit pocket and pulled out a wallet sized photo of Reagan.

"My school photo… You've had this for eight years?" Reagan asked not sure whether to be flattered or creeped out by any of this.

"That's how I recognized you earlier Reagan, you haven't changed that much since you were a kid…"

"Rae…" Jake began.

"What?" Reagan asked turning to Jake and walked over to where he was standing by Andrew's desk and in Jake's hand was a photograph of Andrew with three kids. All who looking much like their father. "You have c-children…"

"Four including you…"

That news was too much for Reagan to handle, along with the news that Andrew had been there the day of her birth and had kept an eye on her. So Reagan did the only thing that she could do at a time like this and that was run.


	23. Chapter 23

The next few days Reagan got on with her life as if the whole Andrew thing didn't matter or like it ever happened. There was one thing meeting the man and talking to him but finding out he had three other kids who kind of looked like him was a whole other matter. Hence the reason Reagan ran, she just wanted to go back to her life and what she saw as normalcy and that was being an only child who loved pudding cups, plaid shirts and having ever constant and ever changing not to mention unpredictable mood swings. Letting out an enormous yawn Reagan made her way out school's front entrance as to wait and avoid the huge rush of other kids leaving through the car park. She'd wait out here for a bit before walking round to the car park and getting her car in order for her to home and take a nap.

"Savannah Cavanaugh?"

Reagan frowned at this. Who the hell was calling her Savannah? It sure as he wasn't Jake as he had practice after school and Liesel had the dentist not to mention only her teachers called her Savannah. Anyone else called her Reagan not that many people did as Reagan tended to avoid people as much as she could. She liked being invisible and a nobody. "It's Reagan Cavanaugh, I don't go by Savannah…"

"I'm sorry…" The person spluttered out and Reagan turned around to see who the hell was talking to her and she saw it was a teenage boy. Dressed in fancy burgundy blazer with a striped navy and burgundy tie, he clearly went to one of those private schools in the are and he was definitely younger than her but there was something very familiar about him although she didn't know why. "I know that you go by Reagan, it's just that I was told that your name was Savannah. I'm Tristan. Tristan Caffery."

"Your one of Andrew's sons." Reagan wearily replied as she closed her eyes for a briefest moment and she instantly remembered when she recognized Tristan from. The photo in Andrew's office, she had only looked at it for about thirty seconds and the kids in the photos were younger but Tristan looked like the eldest kind in the photo not to mention he looked a lot like Andrew.

"Yeah."

"How did you find me?" Reagan asked as she looked uncomfortably at the floor, this was so not what she wanted, meeting bio dad's children.

"Dad. He got someone at his firm to track you down and I saw some papers with your name on his desk and the only places that it had was your house and here. I didn't want to just turn up at your door so I figured I'd come find you here. Had to sneak out of school to get here…" Tristan explained.

"Seriously? Your dad had someone track me down… Your name's Tristan, right? Look I don't know what you came down here expecting but I told your dad already that I want nothing to do with him, I only went to see him because I needed some answers from him and now that I have them. I want nothing to do with him at all, I have my own life and I thought I had made it clear to your dad that I don't want him in my life in the slightest." Reagan said.

"He's our dad." Tristan began. "You keep saying to me 'your dad' but he is your dad too Reagan."

"No, he's your dad not mine. I had a dad, once who wanted me and loved me very much and I'm sorry to say this but he wasn't Andrew Caffery. My dad is and was Horace Cavanaugh; Andrew Caffery may be my biological father but he is most certainly not my dad and my adoption terminated any legal or parental rights that Andrew had so essentially he's nothing to me. Just another stranger living here in D.C."

"How can you say that?" Tristan demanded.

"Quite easy actually. Just open my mouth and the words come out." Reagan retorted with a small roll of her eyes.

"You're supposed to be my big sister."

"But I'm not! I am an only child Tristan, it's that plain and simple. I have no parents and I have no siblings. I'm just Savannah R. Cavanaugh." Reagan replied.

"How can you say that? You're not an only child Reagan because there's me, Ben and Phoebe. We're your brothers and sisters not to mention dad. We're your family!" Tristan retorted and it was clear to Reagan that Tristan clearly did not understand a thing that she was saying.

"I had a family and I lost them, the only family I have now are my two best friends." Reagan snapped and the moment she did she regretted it because Tristan's face fell. "Look I don't mean to be a first class bitch, well okay maybe I do. I kind of can't help a lot of the time as I tend to be very mean when I'm uncomfortable which I practically all the time. I don't have good people skills and I'm sorry that I'm not what you were expecting but what you want from me is something that I can't just can't give."

"Reagan…"

"Let me give you a ride home, it's the least I can do after you came all the way down." Reagan said with a small smile and she could tell that it had worked as Tristan slowly nodded and the two of them started walking towards the car park.

"I thought you said you were mean all the time. Mean people don't offer people ride after they cut school at lunch and travelled halfway across town." Tristan pointed out.

"It's a work in progress, the meanness thing. My best friends have been working with me on all my negative traits, we're not quite there yet as you can probably tell but we are talking about sixteen years worth of anti social and moody behaviours." Reagan admitted.

"You don't seem that bad."

"That's because I had chocolate bar on my way to last period and I'm going to go home and take a nap. Trust me I'm worse, in fact I'm not exactly a nice person to begin with unless I have food. It's one of the few ways that my moods and temper can be controlled with."

"Can I ask you something and if I give you something to eat you won't get mad?" Tristan asked pulling out a small bag of gummy bears from his bad and Reagan wearily eyed them before taking them and slowly nodding for Tristan to continue. "Did you wonder? About us, I mean?"

Reagan took a deep breath as they reached her car and after she unlocked it they both climbed in. "Truthfully? No. Not really. I've known I was adopted for six years now and for a second after I found out I wonder but it was never anything I gave actual thought. I had a family of mine own so why wonder about a hypothetical family? My friends did bring it up a few weeks back joking about the possibility of me having siblings and the idea freaked me out so I don't tend to think about it. I saw a picture of you and your brother and sister in your dad office when I saw him there last week…"

"He told us about you." Tristan began a few minutes after he had told Reagan his address and she had started to drive away from her school. "Dad's really honest and upfront about it, when we we're old enough to understand he told us about you and the adoption… So we've always known about you."

"Tristan… I can't be this person you want me to be, kudos to Andrew for being upfront about me being the biggest mistake of his life but just because you've always known about me doesn't mean that it'll change anything."


	24. Chapter 24

Emily stood in the doorway of Reagan's room and watched as the teenager finished getting ready to go out, it was now summer and school had been finished for weeks and in just under two months it would be a year since Reagan started living here and she would be starting her junior year. Then in three weeks it would be the one year anniversary of her parents death and for the first time since she had left Reagan was going back to Connecticut. Not because she wanted to as she still hated Connecticut but because it was the right thing to do. Liesel and Jake were going with her naturally and Emily had offered to come with them but Reagan had told her that it was best if she didn't because it would do more harm then good plus bring up questions that she really didn't want to answer. Speaking of unanswered questions Reagan had yet to give Emily an answer on this whole adoption thing.

"So where are you going?" Emily asked in order to make conversation with the teenage who had been acting out of character for the last few weeks. At first Emily didn't notice it because of work but eventually she did notice and as the weeks went on it became even more apparent. It wasn't drastic things but it was the small stuff like, how she used to come home later from school and seemed in a general happier mood than usual.

"Just out." Reagan replied.

That was another thing, Reagan became even more cryptic than usual if that was even possible and she was spending less time cooped up in her room and more time outside but she'd never reveal where exactly she had been or what she was doing. "With Jake and Liesel?"

"Of course! Who else?" Reagan snapped and Emily knew to back off if Reagan was starting to lose her temper which was one of the few things that hadn't changed and along with the sarcasm, plaid shirts, pudding cups and general mistrust of everyone and everything that excluded Jake and Liesel were still in full force. But she seemed happier. But the question was what was making her so much happier. "Emily what is it with you and asking me so many damned questions?"

"It's just your acting a bit strange Reagan and have been for the last couple of weeks, you seem to be happier than normal." Emily began

"So it's a crime for me to be somewhat happy instead of being miserable like I usually am? I'm just supposed to be a complete wreck for the rest of my life? Look without a doubt my life sucks, with the whole being adopted thing and the dead parents not to mention the whole foster care things and everything else that has happened in my life since the day I was born but for once my life isn't completely sucking. I have friends for the first time in my life who actually get me and like me the way I am and then there's Tristan so yeah I'm a bit happy because my life isn't falling apart right now and has some stability for the first time in almost a year!" Reagan stated.

"Whose Tristan?" Emily questioned.

"What the hell are you talking about and who the hell is Tristan?" Reagan demanded.

"I don't know that's why I'm asking you, after you were talking about how Jake and Liesel were the first friends you ever had you then said Tristan." Emily explained and seconds later Reagan's face fell momentarily before a forced frown was planted on her face and Emily could hear the teenage murmur a few swear words.

"I don't know what you're talking about, I have no idea who your talking about and I don't know anybody called Tristan." Reagan said and Emily could tell that was a downright lie.

"Is he your boyfriend? Is that why you don't want to talk to me about him?" Emily teased.

Reagan's face started turning red and her fists started shaking a sure sign she was beyond losing her temper and going to blow a gasket as Jake liked to say. "Boyfriend? Are you off your bloody rocker woman? Do I look like somebody who has a boyfriend let alone time for one? I have better things to be doing with my time than to be wasting it on a stupid boy! And what part of I being alone do you not understand or do you really never listen to a damn word that I say!"

Okay so judging by how angry Reagan currently was at the moment it was safe to establish that Tristan wasn't her boyfriend. "Then who is he?" Emily after as Reagan attempted to calm herself down, she hadn't lost her temper like that in months.

"None of your damn business, so just leave it alone!" Reagan retorted as she picked up her bag and skulked out of her room and through the living room and into the kitchen where she got a chocolate bar from the fridge and started to unwrap it. Emily watched as she took a big bite of chocolate before returning to her room and Emily stood in the doorway and observed as Reagan grabbed a bag and started shoving clothes into it. "I'm not coming back tonight, I'm going to crash at Liesel's tonight…"

"Rae…" Emily began only to be ignored as Reagan picked up her two bags, dropped them in the hallway before disappearing into the bathroom only to come out a few seconds later with her toiletries in her hand and quickly shoving them into her bag.

"What now?" Reagan demanded in an exasperated tone of voice.

"You don't have to do this." Emily stated. "If you really don't want to talk about it then we won't, I'll stop asking about it."

Reagan scoffed. "Bullshit. I know you Emily and you just can't drop things, you always want to know despite me making it perfectly clear on many occasions that I don't like talking about things. If I was one of those people who liked to talk about what was going on in my life and wanted you to know what was going on then I'd tell you but I'm not. I don't like talking so stop trying to make me!"

"You have your orthodontist appointment tomorrow." Emily called out as Reagan picked up her bag and walked down the hallway towards the front door only stopping to grab her keys from the front table.

"I'll meet you there." Reagan said before slamming the door right behind her and Emily just sighed, that hadn't exactly gone well. She had been worried about Reagan behaving so out of character but she needn't worry as all it took was one conversation with her for the old Reagan to come back in full force.


	25. Chapter 25

"What's up with you?"

Reagan looked up from where she was sitting on the grass to where Tristan was giving her an odd look and just shook her head. Last few weeks she had been hanging out with Tristan and getting to know him, at first she really didn't want to but the guy did skip school and come all the way to her school to meet her and he looked so heartbroken was she was being all mean that she decided to give him a chance and he had been growing on her in that little brother kind of way. "There's nothing wrong with me, I'm fine.

"Yes there is, I've only known you six weeks now Rae but even I know that if your not eating food then there's something wrong." Tristan noted.

"I eat when there is something the matter actually." Reagan corrected.

"Actually, your always eating. So spill."

Reagan sighed, no point in denying the obvious anymore. "Before I came to meet you Emily was hovering and asking me all these questions which annoyed me and I accidentally mentioned you and Emily asked me about it and being Hurricane Savannah I blew up at her before storming out the house…"

"Oh… So you feel bad about it?" Tristan guessed.

"No, yes… I shouldn't have lost my temper but I really don't like it when people badger me about things I don't want to talk about it and Emily liked doing that as it's what she does for a living. But it's fine, it'll all have blown over by tomorrow Emily knows by now not to take it personally." Reagan said as picked up the brownie that was sitting on the brown bag in front of her and took a bite.

"Why haven't you told her that you came to find my dad and that the two of us in contact?"

"Only my best friends Jake and Liesel know about you and your dad, i don't keep any secrets from them I tell them everything because they are the only people who really get me. I'm not one of these people who make friends easily, in fact I didn't have any friends back in Connecticut except for social worker Susie Q, then I came here I met Jake and Liesel. The two of them put up with me and accept me the way I am, they make everything bearable. I don't know how I went so long without them as I can't imagine not having them in my life."

"I'm your friend too." Tristan added.

"You're my brother, that so doesn't count." Reagan said with a roll of her eyes until she caught Tristan looking at her with this wide eyed starry look in her eyes. "What's up with you now?"

"You just called me your brother."

Reagan bit her lip, she hadn't realized she had done that the words had come out without her realizing and Tristan was looking at her expecting her to play it off and pretend like it never happened. But why should she? He was after all her brother as weird as the concept was a several weeks ago the idea of having siblings had been growing on her. Although she wasn't quite ready to meet her two other younger siblings. "As opposed to calling you what? That guy who shares a resemblance to me and just so happens to share the same biological fathers as me. Face it Caffery, you've been branded."

"Don't actually mind and you didn't answer my question Rae, so there's no avoiding it!" Tristan quipped.

"It's complicated but in a nutshell Emily wants to adopt me so we don't have to any more social worker visit and all that nonsense you get with becoming a foster parent because she can't make any legal decisions for me, it all has to go through my social worker so if she adopts me I'll stay with her for good and she'll be to make the legal decisions for me and Emily says it will give stability …"

"Can she actually adopt you?"

Reagan nodded. "Oh yeah, it's a bit weird given the circumstances but she can as when all the papers were sighed, doted and two weeks had passed since I had been given to my parents, Emily and your dad lost all parental and legal rights to me. Usually it's after the papers have been signed but the adoption become official until two weeks after in case the birth parents changed their mind. In the eyes of the law Emily Prentiss and Andrew Caffery aren't my parents, Horace and Amanda Cavanaugh are or rather were my parents."

"And are you going to let her?" Tristan asked.

"I don't know. It's a big decision and I know Emily wants answer but it's not an easy decision because I understand where Emily is coming from but I am Savannah Cavanaugh and my adoption is part of who I am… I really have no idea what I'm going to do about it." Reagan said with a sigh before demolishing the rest of her brownie.

"Do you miss them? Your parents I mean."

"Naturally but the grief doesn't cripple me like it did when they first died, so much has happened to me in this past years that it's hard to believe that in three weeks it'll be a year since they died. It's seems like only yesterday but then also like it was ages ago. It's going to be weird going back home but it's something that I have to do, my parents tried to raise me to be a somewhat good girl." Reagan said as she went to go grab another brownie as talking about her parents made her emotional and that made her hungry but she stopped herself from taking the brownie.

"You can take it, I'm not going to eat it." Tristan said motioning for Reagan to take the brownie.

"It's not that, I'm finally getting my braces taken off and so I should probably not eat it as my appointment is tomorrow morning and I don't want my orthodontist to remove brownie encrusted braces." Reagan explained but Tristan wasn't listening as he was looking at his phone with a weird look on his face. "What's up with you?"

"Nothing, it's just my mom is freaking out at me." Tristan idly said.

"Why?"

Tristan shrugged his shoulders and looked around sheepishly. "I may or may not be grounded for missing curfew last week but it's no big deal, so don't worry about it and I'm here now so it's not like my mom could do anything worse than ground me for longer."

"Your grounded and you snuck out to hang out with me?" Reagan demanded in shock before standing up and grabbing her things then dragging Tristan out of the park that they were in and back over to her car.

"Ermm Rae where are we going?"

"I'm taking you home baby brother because you should be there because your parents grounded you and I'm not letting you get into anymore trouble because of me. Bloody hell Tristan! First skipping school and then sneaking out the house, some role model I'm supposed to be!" Reagan said with an exasperated sigh as her and Tristan finally got back to her car and she pushed him to the car before making her way to the driver's side of the car.

"Rae you are over reacting! It's fine, my parents will just ground me for another week or two it's no big deal. It's going to make difference me coming home now or in three or four hours so there is no rush." Tristan explained.

"I'm glad you think that but your parents have rules and just because the ones I have a rather lax or I test them doesn't mean you should do the same. Look Tristan I like hanging out with you but you should have told me about you being grounded, I would rescheduled or something. I wouldn't' have written you off just because you couldn't come out and hang out with me." Reagan said.

"But–"

"No buts and hopefully you won't get into trouble if I can help it." Reagan replied and twenty minutes later they arrived at the Caffery big fancy townhouse and she dragged Tristan out of the car and up the porch before knocking on the door and thirty seconds later an average sized woman with brown hair and grey eyes opened the door and Reagan assumed this to be the mother of Tristan and the rest of her siblings. "I believe this belongs to you, I didn't know he was grounded and if I did I would have brought back as soon as I found out…"

"Hey mom…" Tristan sheepishly began.

"Tristan get inside, right now!" The woman began before turning her head into the house. "Andrew he's back!"

"Um… I'll catch you probably when after I get back from Connecticut so I'll give you call round about then or something. But I'll definitely see you later." Reagan said as she turned around and began to walk away, as she had done her bit she had brought Tristan home now it was her time to flee.

"Rae don't go!" Tristan yelled but Reagan kept walking down the pathway.

"Reagan?" For some reason every time that man said her name it caused her to stop in her step and turning around Reagan saw Andrew standing there with a surprised look on his face and she just rolled her eyes but thankfully Tristan was gone as she had a few choice words to say to her bio dad. "What are you doing here? Not that I'm glad to see you…"

"Dropping off your errant son, it's not his fault he snuck out. I asked if he wanted to meet up and he didn't want to say no to me so he snuck out. Don't blame him blame me." Reagan awkwardly began.

"Andrew who is this?"

"Lydia I'd like you to meet my biological daughter who was given up for adoption just over sixteen years ago Savannah Cavanaugh who prefers to go by her middle name and Reagan this is my wife Lydia." Andrew said making introductions.

"Lovely." Reagan said sarcastically.

"How did you and Tristan meet? I wasn't aware that you had made any contact…"

"Well he found my information in your office which brings up something I wanted to talk to you about… What gives you the right to have your colleagues to look into me and find out where I live and where I attend school after I told you that I wanted nothing to do with you? I told you that I had a father who was there, who wanted me and most importantly I loved and he was not you. He was twice the man you'll ever be. But that's how Tristan found because you someone wanted to find me again despite me making my feelings perfectly clear to you." Reagan snapped.

"Can you really blame Reagan?" Andrew questioned.

"Yeah I can. I only came to you for once specific reason and that was answers and I got them and that was supposed to be it. The last thing I wanted was for your son to track me down but Tristan did and I pushed him away but he wouldn't give up and I gave in. I'll admit that over the last few weeks he's grown on me and I'll admit that he is my brother but I should have had the choice on whether or not I wanted to meet your other children… You told me when we met that you had told your kids all about me but I didn't know about them and I can't be expected to play happy families. It's not me anymore."

"I know your angry with me and you have every right to be Savannah but don't talk it out on them, Tristan's been telling Phoebe and Ben all about you. Please just give them a chance to meet you now, you do and I'll leave you alone..."

"Fine." Reagan reluctantly said and Andrew's wife Lydia disappeared back into the house only to return moments later with two children. Andrew took their hands and led them down the stairs and down the pathway to where she was standing.

"Reagan I'd like you to meet Phoebe and Ben…"


	26. Chapter 26

To say Reagan had the urge to flee was pretty much an understatement, she wanted to get into her car and drive as fast and as far away from this house as she could. But for some reason she was stuck, her feet were unable to move as Andrew had led her younger brother and sister over to her. It was really weird for Reagan to have seen them in a picture for thirty seconds to be then meeting them in person. She hadn't realized it up until now but there was a pretty clear resemblance between her and her siblings. Well her and Tristan didn't look too alike as she looked a lot like Emily but you could kind of tell they were related. But the younger two? Ben and Phoebe? It was like Reagan was staring at a somewhat identical clone of her younger self except for a few little differences like hair colour as all three Caffrey children were brunette and there was the fact that Ben was a boy. But Ben and Phoebe had the same eyes hazel eyes and the same ski jump nose as Reagan. Those were the two things that Reagan had inherited from Andrew and apparently so did Ben and Phoebe.

"Ben and Phoebe I'd like you to meet–" Andrew began.

"–Savannah." Reagan interrupted as she mustered up a small smile as she introduced herself to them as Savannah before Andrew could introduce her as Reagan. As much Reagan didn't want to be here, it wouldn't' be fair to take out all her anger about being forced into meeting them out on the two of them as Phoebe and Ben were kids. Reagan had a rule about kids, she was never mean to them or used sarcasm as they weren't ld enough to understand not to mention she always allowed kids to call her by her actual given name of Savannah as she didn't want to confuse them about why she went by her middle name instead of her first name. Andrew looked at Reagan and she kind of glared at him in a manner as if to say go along with it and don't question it. She was convinced that he wouldn't but he actually did.

"This is Savannah, your big sister… You remember me telling you all about her right?" Andrew asked his two youngest children and Phoebe slowly nodded whilst Ben narrowed his eyes and quickly removed his hand from his dad's and Reagan couldn't help but snicker. God that kid was just like her, it wasn't just in appearance but the same awkward and weary behaviour around people. But Phoebe? She seemed to be like Tristan when it came to being confident and able to approach people easily as she let go of her father's and tentatively took a couple of steps of towards Reagan who had no clue what to do.

"Hi." Phoebe said waving her small hand.

Reagan crouched down so she was at eye level with the little girl, there was something about Phoebe that reminded Reagan of herself when she was a little girl. No doubt the happiness and child like innocence that she had before she discovered sarcasm and cynicism. "Hi right back."

"Your pretty." Phoebe said.

"Thank you… Your pretty cute too, cute as a button as some would say." Reagan honestly said and she actually couldn't remember the last time she had been nice to someone. Well she wasn't horrible all the time and she had some nice moments but she certainly wasn't the most pleasant to come across on a daily basis. Reagan put it down to Phoebe being a kid, she liked kids as they were at the stage where they weren't completely messed up and had a chance of being somewhat normal if life didn't chose to give them crappy hands like they did with her. "So how old are you?"

"Six."

"I remember what is was like at that age, I liked school and playing in our back yard but most importantly I liked helping my mom bake stuff because she'd always let me like the batter. Do you like doing that Phoebe?" Reagan asked and the little girl nodded.

"How old are you Savannah?" Phoebe asked putting a little too much emphasis on the last bit of Reagan's name but she ignored it as Savannah was a pretty hard name for a six year old to pronounce and she would know. Half the time she went about calling herself Sav when she was Phoebe's age.

"I'm really old, I'm sixteen." Reagan joked which caused Phoebe to laugh and despite her best efforts not to get emotionally attached to people she barely knew; to a family that she tried her hardest to act like weren't part of hers, Reagan could feel her heart tug a little. Phoebe Caffrey was adorable and her little sister. But there lied the problem, whilst Reagan had adjusted to having a younger brother in Tristan things were going to be a lot harder with her younger siblings. What Reagan was most worried about was disappointing them, Reagan knew that both Andrew and Tristan had told them about her and that was nice and all but Reagan was barely getting a hang of this big sister thing. She didn't want Ben and Phoebe to look up to her and think she was great and all to find out she was the furthest thing from that. The first time Reagan had met Tristan she had disappointed him, he was expecting welcome arms but she didn't welcome him in the slightest, she was mean and rude to put it lightly.

"That's not old, dad is old…" Ben drily said which caused Savannah to laugh as he was only eleven year old but already he was cracking wise cracks and calling his own father old. Ben allowed himself to laugh and Reagan noticed that the two of them had the same grin, on the rare occasion that either of them smile. "Dad said that you were adopted."

"That's correct, it happened a long time ago and way before any of you were born." Reagan replied.

"What does that mean?" Phoebe asked and Reagan wasn't exactly sure how to explain it but thankfully Tristan walked over to his younger sister and had beat her to the punch.

"It means that another family raised her instead of our dad and Savannah's mom, but they were in accident a little while ago and they died and went to heaven like Grandpa and Grandma but they loved her very much."

"Oh." Phoebe quietly said with her mouth making a small o shape. "Were they nice?"

"The best. My parents were very good people, my dad was a firefighter and my mom owned a cake shop and we lived in a very nice house with a big garden back in Connecticut which is where I lived before I moved here." Reagan revealed.

"But if you don't have a mommy and daddy then who looks after you?" Phoebe asked.

"I live with a woman called Emily whose very nice and takes care of me just like a mom would do." Reagan explained in very awkward manner as there was no ways she could explain to a six year old that she lived with her biological mother as that would confuse Phoebe and it meant that Reagan would have to call Emily her mom which she definitely wasn't and it was too weird and Andrew might get the idea that she'd call him dad. Which wasn't going to happen anytime soon.

"Do you miss them?" Ben asked.

"All the time." Reagan honestly replied and she was surprised when the six year old wrapped her arms around the neck to hug her. It was weird, whilst Reagan felt super uncomfortably and wanted to get out of the hug quickly, a part of her inside liked it as she rarely was hugged and though her head told her to pull away her heart was telling her that this was her baby sister. Although Reagan knew she shouldn't be an older sister. It just seemed like a weird thing as Tristan, Ben and Phoebe all seemed like healthy normal people and then there was her. The black sheep of the Caffrey children. She couldn't explain and fully expect them to understand that she was damaged, how she didn't behave like normal people. They were only kids and she didn't want to subject them to the horrors and flaws of Savannah R. Cavanaugh but Reagan knew that she couldn't walk away from them. Just like she couldn't walk away from Tristan and pretend like she never met him. They were siblings, her brothers and sister. People who wanted her.

"Mommy always give me hugs when I'm sad, daddy too." Phoebe explained.

"You know Tristan's talks about you a lot." Ben stated.

"So I've heard and he talks about the two of you a lot." Reagan replied before standing up as her knees were starting to tire from being crouched down for so long. "You know I should probably get going let you guys get back to whatever you were doing before I showed up."

"You don't have to go you know you can stay and hang out, have something to eat… right dad?" Tristan asked turning to his father.

"Stay!" Phoebe pleaded.

"I have plans with a friend tonight and I have a few things on this weeks and the next couple of weeks such as getting my horrible braces off and then I have to go home to Connecticut for a bit but I'll be back. I won't be gone for too long." Reagan assured her siblings, Phoebe looked the most heartbroken of them all.

"Do you promise?" Phoebe asked.

"I promise.

"Kids why don't we all walk Savannah over to her car and then you can say your goodbyes?" Andrew suggested which cheered up Phoebe who took Reagan's hand happily and began walking with her older sister in a happy and cheery manner whilst the rest of them followed.

"This is your car?" Ben asked and it was clear that the eleven year old was impressed.

"Yeah it was a gift for my sixteenth birthday and for getting my license." Reagan said before reaching into her car through the passenger side window and grabbing her bag, more specifically her purse. She wanted to give them something but Reagan had nothing on her and she'd be away for a while so she figured money was the only way to go. Going through her purse Reagan plucked out $80 and split it in two and handed $40 each to Ben and Phoebe. "I know it's nothing personal but go wild.

"Rea–" Andrew began but Reagan glared at him for almost using her middle name. "I mean Savannah, you don't have to do that."

"It's fine, besides it stops me from wasting money on trivial things like pudding cups and crap plus I hear it's what big sisters do." Reagan casually said but she noticed the wide grins that appeared on both Andrew and Tristan's faces. The two of them were grinning like idiots and it wasn't cute at all, unlike Phoebe and Ben who seemed to think they were millionaire's because of their new found riches.

"Why don't I get anything?" Tristan demanded.

"You know why." Reagan retorted referring to the fact she had given him a hundred bucks a week ago just because she could and she doubted Andrew or his wife knew about that. They'd probably have a field day with that but money wasn't exactly an issue with Reagan. She never really had a need for it except to keep her supplied in pens and pudding cups so she was happy to give it to the people in her life.

"Ben, Phoebe what to you say to your sister?" Andrew questioned.

"Thank you!" The two youngest Caffrey children chorused together before saying their goodbyes and being shepherd away by their older brother, leaving just Reagan and Andrew standing together.

"Thank you for doing that."

"I didn't do it for you, I just don't think it's fair to punish them for something that wasn't their fault and I was doing it for Tristan. He's been trying not to shove this happy family thing down my throat despite him so desperately wanting badly where as I don't. So I decided to give him a break because he hasn't been stifling me about it." Reagan replied and Andrew opened his mouth to say something and she knew what he was going to ask so she decided to beat him to it. "I don't like confusing kids about how I prefer to be called my middle name instead of my first name, it's too complicated so I tell them to just call my Savannah as it saves for less confusion not to mention my name is actually Savannah, it's a nice name and my parents went to a lot of effort to come up with a name for me."

"Can I ask why do you go by Reagan instead of Savannah? You've said yourself that Savannah is a nice name but yet you still don't go by it." Andrew asked.

"Personal reasons." Reagan firmly replied making it obviously clear that she was not willing to discuss the reasons why she had decided to go by her middle name instead of her first name almost a year ago.

"Thank you again, you being here and talking to them means so much to them even Ben." Andrew said and Reagan couldn't help but chuckle. If his parents weren't careful they were going to end up with a miniature male version of her.

"As much as I didn't want this to happen their my family, all three of them; Tristan, Ben and Phoebe. If they want to get to know me that that's fine with me." Reagan admitted.

"What changed your mind?"

"Your eldest son's annoying perseverance, that and the fact that my friends so desperately want to meet what they've dubbed 'Mini Reagan's' and I want to make the people I care about happy." Reagan dryly replied, Tristan was just like Andrew when it came to not giving it up and she to admit that it was pretty damn annoying that two people could be so determined. And Reagan used to think that Emily was determined until she met the two of them.

"Feel free to come over whenever you want, your always welcome here Reagan." Andrew said and Reagan could see he was being sincere.

"I'll call Tristan a couple of days after I get back from Connecticut."

"Your going back for the anniversary?" Andrew asked but it seemed more like a statement than anything else and Reagan reluctantly nodded.

"It's the right thing to do, as much as I detest that Connecticut despite it actually being a nice place my parents took me in and raised me there for fifteen years. It's my home so the least I could do is go home to put some flowers on my parents graves in person, just because their dead doesn't mean I stop being their daughter."

"Is Emily going with you?"

"Don't be stupid." Reagan brashly snapped before walking off and climbing into her car, they were having a kind of nice moment before Andrew opened his damn mouth and asked a very silly question. Emily going with Reagan to Connecticut? That was never going to happen as firstly it would be weird and awkward, secondly Reagan didn't want Emily there as all she needed was Liesel and Jake. Lastly it was due to the fact that Emily wasn't apart of her life in Connecticut, she knew that sounded silly especially since Liesel and Jake were coming with her and they didn't meet until Reagan moved to D.C. but they were her best friends, the first friends she had made. Emily was something else. Reagan didn't want to bring the woman who gave her up to the place where her parents had raised her especially since they weren't here anymore. Then Reagan didn't want to explain Emily to all her parents friends who she had to visit when she went home.

The whole subject of Andrew asking about Emily had annoyed Reagan so she went to a drive through to pick up some food in order to settle her bad mood and after she had eaten she figured she should go home and apologize to Emily who was no doubt feeling bad for this morning, despite the fact Emily did nothing wrong. This whole thing with the adoption and meeting the bio family was making Reagan more cranky, stressed and snappy than usual and she knew that Emily didn't deserve to be on the receiving end of it. Reagan's whole thing of keeping and hiding things to herself wasn't very good as it built up and made her prone to losing her temper much quicker. So Reagan decided that she'd tell Emily the truth about meeting Andrew and her siblings but not right now, she'd do it eventually but not right now as she had to deal with this upcoming trip back home to Connecticut first. Making sure she wasn't a complete wreck for/during that trip was the priority at the moment.

When Reagan got back home she walked through the front door and made her way to the sitting room and what she saw knocked her for six. It wasn't the sight of Emily that had shocked her but rather who Emily was with and that was one Andrew Emerson Caffrey. As in her biological dad who for some reason was here at the home that she currently she shared with her biological birth mother. Her birth parents were together in the same room for the first time in over and sixteen years and it was all her fault and Reagan couldn't help the first words that fell out of her mouth.

"Oh shit."


	27. Chapter 27

Emily stood in the kitchen folding Reagan's clean laundry, she was barely halfway through but already she folded up eight plaid shirts, several concert t-shirts of bands that were way before Reagan's time and a dozen pairs of socks. Doing this settled Emily's mind after the events of earlier when Reagan had exploded at her because she had asked the teenager about someone called Tristan. Emily should have known better to push Reagan and not expect the teenager to lash out especially at a time where her emotions were all over the place given that it was so close to the one-year anniversary of her parents deaths. Emily knew well by now not to take Reagan's temper or occasional outbursts personally as the teenager meant no harm, it was just that Reagan's emotions sometimes got the best of her. But Reagan had decided that it would be best if she crashed with Liesel tonight and meet Emily at the orthodontist tomorrow to get her braced removed. As she was folding the clothes Emily was interrupted by a knock on her front door. Stopping what she was doing Emily left the kitchen and made her way down the hallway to living room. Looking through the peephole Emily was surprised at who she saw standing at the other side of the door. He was older than when she had last seen him but Emily recognized him even after sixteen year and taking a deep breath she opened the door.

"Andrew, what are you doing here? Better yet how did you find out where I lived?" Emily asked as she looked at Andrew Caffrey, the man who had broken her heart and left when she was pregnant seventeen years ago.

"Hey Emily… Long time no see, sorry for turning up unexpectedly but Reagan dropped her wallet on her way out and i figured she'd need it so I took a peek in it and got your address from her license." Andrew explained and Emily had to take a step back to process what she had just heard. Andrew had just mentioned Reagan but that wasn't possible as he didn't know about her as he wasn't there when Reagan was born or throughout the pregnancy but yet he knew that Savannah went by her middle name of Reagan instead of her first name. Not only that but Andrew had seen her, as in actually seen their daughter which is how he ended up with her wallet. Emily was shocked to the core. "Emily, why do you seem so shocked to see me?"

"You know about Reagan…" Emily uttered, normally she was prone to becoming speechless given that she was a federal agent and she was trained to remain cool under pressure but there was nothing that could have ever prepared Emily for this. Andrew Caffrey had been out of her life for a long time and then one day he just shows up on her doorstep.

"She didn't tell you that we met, did she?" Andrew figured and Emily shook her head.

"No Reagan didn't, you had better come in…" Emily wearily replied stepping out of the way to allow Andrew to come in. After shutting the door Emily led Andrew into the living and the two of them just stood there awkwardly as they hadn't seen each other in sixteen years and they hadn't exactly left things on the greatest page.

"About what happened Emily… I know this is too little too late but I am sorry for running away like a coward when I found out you were pregnant. I was scared out of my mind but that does not excuse what I did, you deserved better for me and I should have been there–" Andrew began.

"This isn't about us Andrew, what happened is in the past… it's about Reagan now." Emily replied moving things along because no matter how she had been angry and upset over what Andrew had done to her, she was more interested in Andrew had found Reagan or vice versa. "So how exactly do you know about her?"

"I've always known about her Emily, you don't know this but I was at the hospital the day she was born. I had tracked her down a couple of years ago just to make sure that she was okay and that was it until about six or seven weeks ago. Literally ran into her at a coffee stand outside my office and I recognized her straight away. Beautiful girl. Brilliant and stubborn just like her mother. I was surprised to see her here of all places of course seeing as I thought she lived in Connecticut but her friends explained to me about her adoptive parents." Andrew explained.

"Liesel and Jake? They were with her?" Emily asked although she knew it was a bit of redundant question as Reagan was always with them, the only time the three of them weren't together was then they were sleeping or spending time with their respective families.

"Yeah, apparently they had been looking for me because Reagan wanted some answers about her adoption. From what I've been told you want to adopt her…"

"It's complicated." Emily wearily said not willing to go into it at the moment.

"So I've gathered, you give our daughter up for adoption and sixteen years later you take her back in because her adoptive parents were killed and now you want to adopt her. I'd say complicated is putting it rather lightly Emily." Andrew stated and Emily just sighed. "But she didn't tell you?"

"No Reagan likes to keep things to her chest… You can't push her, you do and she won't react well. She's got a bit of a temper." Emily murmured as this explained everything, why Reagan had been acting so weird the last couple of week and why she was quick to lose her temper whenever Emily asked her a question about what she was doing.

"So I've noticed." Andrew noted and Emily couldn't help but laugh.

"Whilst she has a temper Reagan is a very sweet girl, they raised her well, her adoptive parents… She loved them very much and losing them the way she did almost killed her. If you had seen Reagan when she first arrived her, she was so different… She didn't talk much and if you attempted to call her Savannah she'd break something. It took her a while to settle and she kept me at arms length but once she met Liesel and Jake something changed. They changed her, she's not as aloof as she was before… I found it hard to believe that she didn't have friends until she met them. Liesel and Jake have become a surrogate family to her and their the only ones who can call Reagan Savannah and she'll respond to them." Emily stated and a moment later she noticed a frown on Andrew's face. "What is it?"

"Her friends aren't the only ones who allow her to call her that…"

"You? Reagan allows you to call her Savannah?" Emily asked in shock.

"Gosh no, Reagan doesn't think much of me at the moment not that I blame her but she allows my kids, her brother and sister to call her Savannah."

"Kids?" Emily slowly said.

"Three, four if you include Reagan. Another little girl called Phoebe and two boys, Tristan and Ben Andrew explained. "Tristan is fourteen, Ben is eleven and Phoebe is six. They all look like Reagan, in particular Ben and Phoebe."

"Tristan?" Emily wearily asked, she had heard that name before several times. She had asked Reagan about it once and the teenager almost bit her head of in response. It now made sense to Emily why Reagan had freaked out so much when she asked about Tristan. Before Andrew could even respond tot his Emily heard the front door open before being quickly shut and she realized that Reagan was back home despite what happened this morning and Reagan saying that she'd crash at Liesel's tonight. Emily glanced over at Andrew who had a similar look on his face, they both knew what was coming and knowing Reagan, it was going to be pleasant. But there was nothing they can do and there was no way they could run.

The moment that was inevitably coming finally came as Reagan walked into the door and Emily watched as the teenagers eyes kept darting from her to Andrew and Emily could literally see what was going on in Reagan's head at this precise moment.

"Oh shit."

And there was the profanity. This wouldn't be an incident involving Reagan if there wasn't any swearing.


End file.
